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.

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.

Curcumin - The Mellow Yellow Health Tool

Focus on...

Some more detailed examination of the benefits of curcumin and the problems with formulation.

Why is this useful?

There are lots of necessary supplements for the over 50’s [protein, ‘Vitamin’ D, vitamins B12 and B9 [Folate], Magnesium, Zinc …] At this point if you have followed my recommendations, you are rattling and considering the expense.

So when it comes to other additional agents, they must be really beneficial.

Curcumin [one of the active ingredients in dietary turmeric -that golden spice that stains your kitchen yellow when you have a curry] should definitely be on your list.

But … eating more Curry is not the answer.

It’s a Bug’s Life: offer love and take care of your microbiome

You have more bacteria about you - on your skin, in your gut and all the other nooks and crannies – than there are actual human cells in your body. More importantly they do stuff that matters. Whether that is for good, or evil depends on which bacteria are in your particular crowd. This matters for the critical aims we have in respect of longevity. The goal in its simplest terms is reduce inflammaging and prevent dementia, mainly Alzheimer’s Disease [AD]. But apart from the relationship between the mouth microbiome and AD the inflammation associated with a bad microbiome in the gut triggers AD, heart disease, atopic conditions such as asthma, eczema and rhinitis, irritable bowel, inflammatory bowel disease and is a contributing cause for obesity.