#1 Neurologists: 5 Habits to Boost Brain Health & Prevent Alzheimer's

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Dementia builds for 20+ years before the first symptom

  Neurologists Dr. Ayesha and Dr. Dean Sherzai, authors of The Alzheimer's Solution, describe a preclinical stage with no memory problems while amyloid plaques, tau tangles, inflammation, vascular changes and atrophy may already be accumulating. Contributors they list include chronic stress, poor sleep, high cholesterol, loneliness, untreated sleep apnoea and unhealthy habits. Their message: the change is in your hands, whether you're 9 or 90.

• 02

  Lifestyle can prevent or delay a large share of cases, with caveats

  Dean says around 60% of people with pre-Alzheimer's or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) can be helped to prevent or significantly delay dementia, a figure he calls proven. He says higher figures like 90% are extrapolation and is careful to separate the two. Advanced dementia, he notes, is far harder to reverse, though it can still be slowed.

• 03

  The NEURO plan has five pillars

  N is nutrition, E exercise, U unwind (handle major stressors, mindfulness, deeper rest), R restorative sleep, and O optimise (challenge your brain, find purpose, stay social). Their claim is that the habits stack: in one study, doing one or two cut Alzheimer's risk by about 30%, and doing four cut it by about 60%.

• 04

  Your brain is mostly connections, and you can keep building them

  With string-and-knot props, they show that neurons can share tens of thousands of connections. Stress, poor sleep and inactivity cut those strings, which is what 'shrinking your brain' means, and once severed many never reconnect. Healthy habits let neurons sprout new connections, they say even at 80, 90 or 100.

• 05

  Cognitive reserve is a buffer you deposit into over decades

  In their marble-jar demo, each bad night or junk-food stretch pours marbles out. Someone who invested in brain health can lose some to a minor brain injury or years of caregiving and still have plenty left. Someone who didn't has little to spare.

• 06

  Chronic stress literally shrinks the memory centre

  Ayesha says bad stress releases hormones that block information from being stored, raises inflammation and oxidative damage, and keeps you in fight-or-flight even when you look calm. She cites studies showing smaller brains, especially a smaller hippocampus, under chronic stress. She distinguishes this from the good stress of learning new things.

• 07

  Caregivers face their own elevated risk

  Mel reads a passage from their book: partners of people who develop dementia had a 600% greater risk of developing it themselves than a matched population. The authors attribute this to shared lifestyle factors as well as the chronic stress of caregiving.

• 08

  Head injuries count

  A significant head trauma, or many smaller ones, raises later risk. The fluid around the brain doesn't cushion much, so the brain can bounce off the ridged inside of the skull. Their advice is to choose activities with that in mind.

• 09

  Leg strength protects the brain at both ends of life

  Older people most often land in the emergency room from falls; the Sherzais recently lost Ayesha's mother after a fall. They also call the legs a bigger pump of blood than the heart and say leg strength builds brain volume in younger people.

• 10

  Creativity and 'idea density' are protective

  Dean calls creativity the brain's ultimate purpose, and says people who keep pushing it into new things build their brains late in life. The famous Nun Study is their main evidence (see examples).