What’s the one thing that worries you most about getting older?
Is it concern you might develop cancer?
Are you fearful about losing your mobility and functional independence?
Or is it the thought of developing Alzheimer’s disease or other form of dementia?
Ageing is inevitable. We are ageing from day one.
We’re also living longer, thanks to improved nutrition, sanitation, clean water and medical treatments that help restore us to full health and well-being.
The caveat to this being that our health span is not equal to our lifespan.
It’s one thing to live longer, but what of the quality of that life?
Research from the Mayo Clinic in the US has revealed that the health-span-lifespan gap is widening, more so for women. This reflects the reality that our later years are burdened by living with more chronic disease.
In Australia, our lifespan is roughly 80 years for men and 85 years for women, but our health span is currently sitting at around 70-71 years.
Our health span is actually 20% lower than the world average!
Are you shocked? I know I am.
However, research has indicated there is much we can do to improve our health span, including delaying the onset of cognitive decline.
The key to reducing the burden of chronic disease is LIFESTYLE
I’ve been talking about and presenting on brain health since 2009. Back then nine potentially modifiable risk factors to safeguard us from cognitive decline had already been outlined. These are included in the six pillars of Lifestyle Medicine; healthy nutrition, exercise, sufficient good quality sleep, staying social, avoiding risky behaviours like smoking or drinking too much alcohol, stimulating your brain with learning and challenge, staying involved with your local community and naturally, spending time with nature.
Since then, more potentially modifiable risk factors have been added. There are now 14.
The current reality about Alzheimer’s disease, is that despite a lot of time, effort and money being poured into research, little progress has been made other than several drugs being shown to slow down the progress of the disease a little.
I’ve always believed that prevention is key and it’s the choices we make across our lives (at every age) that can help protect us. While there is no magic wand or gold-plated guarantee, adopting healthy lifestyle behaviours gives us a fighting chance to delay or defer dementia.
It’s estimated 45% of dementia risk is potentially preventable by addressing lifestyle factors, meaning, the time for action was yesterday
It was the aptly called FINGER study, published in 2015, that really put the use of multidomain lifestyle interventions to improve brain health and prevent cognitive decline on the map.
The Finnish Geriatric Intervention Study to Prevent Cognitive Impairment and Disability (FINGER) was a world first. 1260 participants aged 60-77 with risk factors for dementia but no memory problems were put on a 2-year program where those in the intervention group received interventions in diet, physical activity, cognitive training, social activity and monitoring of cardiovascular factors. Extended follow-ups continued for 11 years.
The findings were that those in the intervention group showed a 25% improvement compared to the control group, and the control group had a 30% increased risk of developing cognitive impairment compared to the intervention group.
Over time, those who had been in the intervention group enjoyed better cognitive health but also retained their mobility and higher quality of life and a 60% lower risk of multimorbidity.
Since then, other worldwide FINGER studies in 60 countries have been undertaken to further develop the interventions aimed to improve cognitive health by lowering the risk of inflammation and oxidative stress and improving cerebral blood circulation.
Australian research contribution.
Henry Brodarty, dementia researcher and co-director of the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing at UNSW has been involved in a three-year online lifestyle intervention program.
The Maintain Your Brain study has been tracking 6000 people aged 55-77 across NSW online. Here the active group have received health coaching and support in physical activity, nutrition, brain training and mental health. The control group has received publicly available information.
What’s been shown is that the intervention group improved their cognitive function more than the control group, equivalent to delaying the onset of cognitive decline by 12 months.
That might not sound much but as Professor Brodarty advises, a 12-month delay in onset would reduce the number of people living with dementia by 10%. With 420,000 Australians currently living with dementia, having 42,000 fewer people being diagnosed is certainly very worthwhile.
It’s believed this is because the lifestyle interventions help to build cognitive reserve that buffers against the development of symptoms of dementia.
Alzheimer’s disease is multi-factorial, and the pathological changes start developing in our brains, thirty years or more before showing up as memory loss.
This means that adopting healthy lifestyle habits can play an important role in keeping us healthy for longer as we age – and you’re never too old to make the change.
What #onesmallthing will you do to reduce your risk of cognitive decline?
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