Reminder: A brain-friendly lifestyle is the best approach to delay cognitive decline and dementia

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What Sci­ence Tells Us About Pre­vent­ing Demen­tia (The Wall Street Journal):

“When it comes to bat­tling demen­tia, the unfor­tu­nate news is this: Med­ica­tions have proven inef­fec­tive at cur­ing or stop­ping the dis­ease and its most com­mon form, Alzheimer’s dis­ease. But that isn’t the end of the sto­ry. Accord­ing to a recent wave of sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies, we have more con­trol over our cog­ni­tive health than is com­mon­ly known. We just have to take cer­tain steps—ideally, ear­ly and often—to live a health­i­er lifestyle.

In fact, accord­ing to a recent report com­mis­sioned by the Lancet, a med­ical jour­nal, around 35% of demen­tia cas­es might be pre­vent­ed if peo­ple do things includ­ing exer­cis­ing and engag­ing in cog­ni­tive­ly stim­u­lat­ing activ­i­ties. “When peo­ple ask me how to pre­vent demen­tia, they often want a sim­ple answer, such as vit­a­mins, dietary sup­ple­ments or the lat­est hyped idea,” says Eric Lar­son, a physi­cian at Kaiser Per­ma­nente in Seat­tle and one of a group of sci­en­tists who helped pre­pare the report. “I tell them they can take many com­mon-sense actions that pro­mote health through­out life” … there is increas­ing evi­dence that people—even those who inher­it genes that put them at greater risk of devel­op­ing Alzheimer’s in lat­er life—can improve their chances by adopt­ing lifestyle changes.

To learn more about the opportunity:

• Solv­ing the Brain Fit­ness Puz­zle Is the Key to Self-Empow­ered Aging
• Can you grow your hip­pocam­pus? Yes. Here’s how, and why it matters
• What are cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties and how to boost them?

To learn more about dementia prevention:

• Cog­ni­tive train­ing, diet, exer­cise, and vas­cu­lar man­age­ment seen to improve cog­ni­tion even in peo­ple with genet­ic pre­dis­po­si­tion for demen­tia (APOE e4)
• New stud­ies rein­force Edu­ca­tion and Cog­ni­tive Reserve –instead of drugs tar­get­ing beta amy­loid– as most promis­ing avenue to pro­long cog­ni­tive health and reduce demen­tia risk
• Study: 46.7 mil­lion Amer­i­cans have Alzheimer’s Dis­ease brain pathol­o­gy today, so it’s urgent to pre­vent or at least delay pro­gres­sion to clin­i­cal disease
• Report: 35% of world­wide demen­tia cas­es could be pre­vent­ed by mod­i­fy­ing these 9 mod­i­fi­able risk factors