Can you reduce your risk of dementia?

Eat healthy. Exercise. Socialize. These activities may reduce your risk of dementia by keeping your brain and heart happy and healthy.

“Living a brain-healthy lifestyle can lower your risk of dementia. This means reducing the risk factors that can negatively impact your brain and doing more of the activities that support brain health,” said Kayla Jones, a speech-language pathologist who provides cognitive therapy with Baptist Rehabilitation. “The earlier we start, the better, but it’s never too late to make simple, positive changes.

The 2024 update of the Lancet Commission on dementia estimates that around 40% of dementia cases may be prevented or delayed by targeting certain modifiable risk factors throughout life, though there are some risk factors you can’t change. According to the Alzheimer’s Society, people over the age of 65 have a higher risk than younger individuals. Other factors include family history and ethnicity.

Ways to lower your dementia risk

Here are some tips from the Alzheimer’s Society that may help reduce your risk:

• Exercise. What’s good for your heart is good for your brain. Being active, even if it’s a brisk walk on a regular basis, can lower your blood pressure and improve your cholesterol. Find ways to move your body throughout the day.
• Eat healthy. Maintain a “MIND diet,” which is a fusion of the Mediterranean and the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diets, emphasizing vegetables, fruits, nuts, fish and olive oil. You can find a variety of recipes and tips online.
• Be social. Interacting with others by organizing or attending social activities or meetings is good for your brain and your heart. For instance, try to establish meeting times with friends every week or join a community group.
• Learn something new. Go to the library, learn a new language, go on adventures and cross items off your “bucket list.” Learning and seeing new things can improve memory, attention span and reasoning skills.
• Have a sense of purpose. Take care of a pet, do volunteer work, and find things you look forward to doing every day.