About 40% of dementia cases could be prevented or delayed by healthy lifestyle choices and preventive medicine. Here's a tool to gauge your brain care and track your progress.
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The overall health and wellness of our citizens is something the US government should be heavily investing in. But memory care and assisted living facilities as well as cancer treatment are big business and business lobbies. The US - where we refer our people to be unhealthy for profit.
Pro tip for the incoming MAHA administration: there is no silver bullet to eliminate chronic diseases. Systemic change is needed. Multiple lifestyle choices need to be addressed.
When you show the symptoms. Our brains fight for 15 to 20+ years before this happens. The Lancet publishes research on the modifiable risk factors and every year more risk factors are added as more is known. Our research is focused on Precision Aging, what will move the needle for you
Embarrassing that this story doesn't mention COVID infections (which many people get multiple times per year) show significant evidence of increasing dementia risk and worsening existing dementia. "Healthy lifestyle choices" includes things like high-quality masks. https://www.nature.com/articles/d44151-024-00168-7
Behaviors like wearing high-quality masks and avoiding crowded indoor events are modifiable. Not perfectly of course; different people's housing and employment situations limit the ways/amounts they can practice risk-reducing behaviors, but other factors like diet and exercise face similar limits.
I am not saying folks shouldn’t choose a healthy lifestyle, but my health-nut father, who was otherwise in excellent health for an 83-year old, was taken out by dementia. Granted, it took almost eight years from first diagnosis. In hindsight it felt like prolonging his suffering.
Audiologist here. Addressing hearing loss with hearing aid use is one of the top “easily modifiable” factors and yet not mentioned in the article. (I’ve not had coffee yet, so apologies if it was and I missed it.) Hearing care is health care.
Go to the source. This article is based on an open access publication on Lancet: Dementia Prevention Intervention and Care https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
there are literally not enough doctors for everyone in this country to get annual physicals, before getting into whether it's affordable. Or you can even have insurance, but be unable to get a PCP because they all have full patient lists or year+ wait times.
Can I ask where in the country you live where you’re having to wait a year to see your doctor? The great thing about annual physicals is since they’re annual you could theoretically schedule one a year in advance
Actually under the Affordable Care Act your annual physical exam is usually free as long as you only address preventative care and not chronic medical issues. And my last annual visit was virtual (although not all of them can be).
Preventative care only matters if the primary care of the demented and other medical professionals around him/her actually do something. With my father, my brother and I had to seek emergency intervention to deal with him and by that time, he was more gone than in a position to be helped. 😥
The article didn't get into it, but these lifestyle factors matter 20+ years BEFORE dementia begins. Yes, once dementia shows up, it is likely too late.
My father, 20+ years before dementia set in, was a former pilot and AF officer and an avid golfer. All that said, every brother and sister of my dad had some sort of dementia before passing. My father's father did too, though undiagnosed hydrocephaly is too odd to really factor much.
This is generic and relies on pharma. If you want better actions look at the work of William Davis, MD, a neurologist who has brought clients out of early stage dementia by addressing the gut biome. He has several books out and many free YouTube videos. Libraries do have his books, btw.
Reducing or eliminating alcohol consumption and protecting your hearing aren’t things that “rely on pharma”, and they’re the two biggest factors in reducing your likelihood of developing dementia later in life.
It’s kinda wild that a solid recipe for reducing your risk of cognitive decline is “protect your hearing so you can keep socializing, be moderately active, and moderate or abstain w/ alcohol”.
These are bold statements based on correlations, not causations. Until a link is established explaining why and how a certain factor resulted in dementia this is all mere speculation.
Just did the test. I found it fascinating there were no questions about current age and gender. It would be great if Allison Aubrey would interview Dr. Lisa Mosconi from Weil Cornell Women's Brain Institute. Lots of complexity and HRT can have a positive impact.
Feel free to participate in our scientific research. It takes less than 10 minutes online at https://mindcrowd.org You can discover if your brain performs faster, slower of the same than others your age and collaborate with our scientists.
Disappointed that one of the causes of dementia & Alzheimer’s is the prescribing of statins to fight cholesterol, a much needed product of the liver by the brain. The removal of LDL’s lowers 1 of the transport methods of cholesterol from liver to brain. Try reducing intake of carbs & sugar.
You’re right about the doctors looking to get the numbers down. It’s become a numbers game and understandably so. It’s easier to quantify “good living” than to qualify “good living”.
The measure of cholesterol doesn’t identify what is normal based on age, race, ethnicity or gender. #confirmationbias
Folks most dementia patients happen by people cutting themselves off from the world. It’s important to stay connected to these older folks and keep them involved in daily routines to keep their mind active.
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If you mean my source for those being two contributors to dementia, that would be the link OP shared that you’re criticizing.
Here’s another source for that: https://x.com/erictopol/status/1818757984392188120?s=46&t=VR-WmdUbe39V1eKR9OV9bg
HRT was massively helpful to her after menopause but she was taken off of it during the frenzy around it. I often think about that.
There were no men in her memory care home.
https://bsky.app/profile/daniellebeckman.bsky.social/post/3lbn63eq5f22j
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/departments/neurological/research-innovations/brain-study#participate
what i found with a quick google search seems to indicate that the link is unclear.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/do-statins-increase-the-risk-of-dementia
https://alzres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13195-023-01360-0
https://youtu.be/KKRi7TglrzA?si=5K7sxsSwS2nKgzE0
My own personal experience was weakness in the joints and very poor sleep due to nightmares.
LDLs repair vascular damage caused by processed sugars.
the current recommendations for who should take statins are fairly conservative, and try to balance risk vs benefit (https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/statin-use-in-adults-preventive-medication).
but i feel like doctors still just like to get those cholesterol numbers down.
The measure of cholesterol doesn’t identify what is normal based on age, race, ethnicity or gender. #confirmationbias