Keeping your marbles – Steps to Prevent Dementia

Steps to Prevent Dementia

What are you doing to prevent dementia? Yes, you can reduce your risk!

An influential report, the Lancet Commission Report of Dementia Prevention,  updated in 2024, details 14 risk-reducing steps. I have 3 steps to add to that list.

Why bother?

Dementia is a big problem that you don’t want to get:

• It affects a large number of people, and it is devastating. Over age 65, there are 1 in 14 people with dementia, and for over 80’s it rises to 1 in 6. 
• Women are twice as likely to suffer.
• Dementia is currently the most important contributor to death in the United Kingdom, ahead of heart disease and stroke.

What do you need to do?

Tackle the problems: these 17 risk factors are all modifiable and allow you to reduce your risk of dementia by at least 50%, and at the minimum, delay the onset. Worth doing, don't you think? Addressing some personal weaknesses, keeping slim and active with all your health issues under optimum control will make the difference.

 

The risk factors fall into 5 groups, 4 you can work on ie poisons, social isolation, lifestyle medical issues, major medical metabolic problems, and the public health issues that are less controllable. The additional steps are taking HRT/TRT, perfect oral hygiene and shingles control.

Fidgets

Be a fidgeter!

Start today. These extra movements can help you increase your activity, boost your metabolism, keep your weight down and maintain joint function.

In a café or on a train you can see the fidgets: they are playing invisible pianos, tapping out rhythms, bouncing their knees. This is all beneficial. – often they don’t know they are doing it. I just want you to make it systematic, conscious and targeted.

Managing Sugar

Sweet enough! Managing the sugars in your diet

You have a 'sweet tooth' and crave sugary things. OK, it's not a weakness, it's genetic ie you can blame it on your parents*. However, sadly the consequences of this are entirely your responsibility. If you are struggling with your weight, then you need a sugar [reduction] strategy, and that is also critically important for a good HealthSpan and Alzheimer's avoidance. A high sugar diet means blood sugar spikes after eating which leads to insulin resistance [lots of metabolic issues] and fat storage. You choose.

Body Composition, not Body Weight

You may think being on top of age means being weight obsessed. But in reality, it is the quality of what your body consists of that is important in terms of limiting ageing.

The key is having a sense of how much muscle [positive] you have and how much central fat [potentially damaging] you have gained.

So the number on the scale is less important  as long as you are travelling in the right direction.