Risk mitigation begins at birth (or before birth with preimplantation genetic testing). We can model healthy diet and exercise for our children and encourage them to participate in sports that are relatively safer such as swimming or golf rather than more dangerous ones such as boxing or base jumping.
Eventually gene editing may provide one of the best ways to dramatically reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s. Until then, maintaining a healthy lifestyle and intermittent rapamycin use (in adults) seems like a great start.
I don’t want to argue about CR. My point was just that we don’t know anything that works in “metabolically, weight and exercised optimized individuals”. So it’s not only GLP1: it’s the same for every single intervention.
The funny thing is that one and so far only reason I personally (while I’m still “optimized”) would consider a GLP med for longevity is to help me achieve a bit more calorie deficit/restriction in an easier way
A new study, published in the journal GeroScience , highlights a promising link between nut consumption and a reduced risk of dementia. The findings suggest that middle-aged and older adults who regularly consume nuts have a 12% lower chance of developing dementia compared to non-consumers. This protective effect was particularly strong for those who consumed up to a handful of unsalted nuts daily, which appeared to yield the most significant cognitive benefits.
A new international study led by a team of scientists from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev showed controlling blood sugar levels is a significant key mechanism linking diet to slower brain aging.
“By tracking the volumes of dozens of different brain regions with MRI technology, we quantified the participants’ brain volumes before and after dietary intervention,” Shai added.
The original experiment, published about two years ago, demonstrated a 50% reduction in brain atrophy while consuming a green Mediterranean diet, which included the consumption of Mankai and green tea.
Now, the current study’s findings highlight blood sugar control as the primary link between diet and the brain regions vital for cognitive function (like the hippocampus, lateral ventricles, thalamus and cerebellum), motor control and sensory processing.
“These findings are crucial not only for people with high blood sugar but for everyone’s health at any age,” Shai explained. “We know that diabetics have a significantly higher risk of dementia, which isn’t a new finding. High blood sugar levels place strain on brain cells and lead to long-term damage, impairing brain function.”
“In this process, advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) form as sugars bind to cellular proteins like collagen and blood vessels, which reduces vascular elasticity and weakens blood supply to the brain.”
“Berislav Zlokovic, a prominent Alzheimer’s disease and stroke researcher who has long headed a major neuroscience institute at the University of Southern California (USC), is now on an indefinite leave of absence, according to a school official. USC declined to clarify a reason for the leave, but Zlokovic has faced scrutiny since a 2023 Science investigationdescribed evidence that he had engaged in scientific misconduct for decades. Science has also learned that a planned $30 million clinical trial of a stroke drug candidate Zlokovic helped develop has been formally called off by its company sponsor, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has required that USC return nearly $2 million in funding for the trial.”
Signs of frailty may signal future dementia more than a decade before cognitive symptoms occur, in new findings that may provide a potential opportunity to identify high-risk populations for targeted enrollment in clinical trials of dementia prevention and treatment.
Results of an international study assessing frailty trajectories showed frailty levels notably increased in the 4-9 years before dementia diagnosis. Even among study participants whose baseline frailty measurement was taken prior to that acceleration period, frailty was still positively associated with dementia risk, the investigators noted.
“We found that with every four to five additional health problems, there is on average a 40% higher risk of developing dementia, while the risk is lower for people who are more physically fit,” study investigator David Ward, PhD, of the Centre for Health Services Research, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, told Medscape Medical News.
In Older People, Why Does a History of Oral Herpes Double the Risk of Dementia?
A 2024 study reported that an HSV infection may be indicative of doubled dementia risk in the older population (specifically, the participants included over 1,000 70-year-olds). The study found that people with antibodies for HSV-1 had a significantly higher risk of developing dementia. Specifically, being seropositive, or having antibodies in one’s blood, for HSV-1 nearly doubled the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Another study breaks it down this way: “Herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV1) is a neuroinvasive virus capable of entering the brain which makes it a candidate pathogen for increasing risk of dementia.” The virus can actually change the brain in a way that makes it susceptible to developing dementia.
Physical activity of any kind appears to increase a person’s cognitive processing speed, according to a new study.
While it is generally accepted that moderate-to-vigorous exercise benefits brain health, this study finds that any physical activity at all carries with it some cognitive benefit.
The study leveraged mobile phones to allow researchers to survey study participants regarding their activity levels nearly in realtime, and to test their cognitive processing speed multiple times during the day.
The positive effect of being active may have to do with a heightened sense of alertness that comes with physical movement.
Everyday physical activity offers a boost in short-term brain processing speed, according to the findings of a new study from researchers at Penn State College of Medicine.
The study found that common day-to-day activities, regardless of intensity, can provide a short-term improvement in mental reaction time similar to reducing one’s cognitive age by four years.
Previous research has established the value of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity for maintaining cognitive health — and for good health in general.
This study — published in Annals of Behavioral Medicine — uniquely investigates the potential benefit of activities in which people commonly engage during the course of their day, both at work and at home.
An international team of scientists led by UdeM wife-and-husband team Zdenka Pausova and Tomas Paus links the presence of white spots on MRI brain scans of older adults to a genetic risk of dementia.
Athletes Exhibit Better Working Memory than Sedentary People
A fair sized body of evidence shows that physical activity improves memory function, both in the short term immediately following exercise, and over the long term for people engaging in regular exercise. This occurs in both younger and older people; it isn’t just a matter of compensating for the effects of aging. The brain operates at the edge of its capacity, and delivery of greater nutrients and oxygen via increased cerebral blood flow following exercise enables greater activity. Thus it isn’t surprising to see associations between memory function and the level of physical activity required to be an athlete. Of note, this study isn’t all that great for older demographics - older athletes are relatively small in number.
This meta-analysis investigated the differences in working memory (WM) performance between athletes and non-athletes in non-sports-specific tasks. A comprehensive evaluation of 21 studies encompassing different age groups, genders, and sports types identified a small but statistically significant advantage in WM accuracy or capacity for athletes compared to non-athletes. Notably, this advantage was more pronounced when athletes were contrasted with a sedentary population.
We conducted seven subgroup analyses as part of this study. An age-specific investigation revealed a small but significant advantage in WM for young adult athletes over non-athletes. However, our investigation into the link between sports expertise and WM across various age groups is limited by a lack of substantial research focusing on older adults and children. Therefore, we are unable to confirm whether older athletes exhibit superior WM enhancement in comparison to other demographic groups. Considering the benefits of exercise for mitigating age-related cognitive decline, as well as its role in improving cognitive and learning abilities during childhood and adolescence, studies focusing on these age groups would be important. In particular, studies on older adults who are ex-athletes could provide insights into the long-term effects of sports.
Subgroup analysis based on sports types revealed that athletes from individual sports outperformed non-athletes in experimental WM tasks, while athletes from team sports showed no such significant advantage. Contrary to our expectations, no significant difference was found between individual and team sports subgroups in WM performance. These results suggest that the cognitive gains afforded by engaging in sports likely arise from general physiological and psychological effects.
Our comparison of WM performance of elite and non-elite athletes with that of non-athletes identified a WM advantage for elite athletes, while the advantage for non-elite athletes approached but did not reach statistical significance. Additionally, there was no significant difference in WM performance between the two subgroups. This finding prompts introspection regarding the sports performance-cognition nexus. Our results imply that cognitive benefits, particularly with respect to WM, stem more from sustained engagement in workout than from the high competitive level achieved.
The WM advantage observed in athletes in comparison to non-athletes is likely based on both physiological and psychological mechanisms. Physiologically, sports confer efficiency advantages in information processing and cognitive function by increasing cerebral blood flow, triggering the release of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, and promoting neural network plasticity. Psychologically, sports confer benefits that optimise cognitive performance through improved control, enhanced attention allocation, and accelerated information processing.
