An expert has spoken about key ways to prevent dementia - and admitted that
Women are more likely to get it than men. Speaking on the Zoe podcast, which was part founded by nutrition expert Tim Spector, Professor Claire Steves shared ways people can try to stave off the terrible condition. Listen to the full podcast here . She explained there were a number of questions people generally needed to ask themselves and know the answers to - and said: “Is dementia inevitable as part of the ageing process? No. Are women more likely to get dementia than men? Yes. If my parents have dementia, am I certain to get it as well? They’re a bunch of New Alzheimer’s drugs. Are they going to stop the disease for most people? No. If I change what I eat, can I lower my risk of dementia? And finally, what’s the most common misconception? You often hear about dementia that there’s nothing you can do about it.” The Zoe podcast said the most common misconception about dementia is that there’s nothing you can do about it. It added that Dr Steves was going to share promising new drug development to lifestyle changes that can help increase a person’s cognitive reserve and potentially slow the onset of dementia ‘Claire shares everything you need to know about brain ageing, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease’. Prof Steves said that a key aspect in prevention was making sure that people follow a good diet was key. She said: “The brain is hugely metabolically active and needs a lot of nutrients, and we know that a wide variety of plant based nutrients is really important for brain health. So actually, what I realistically say to patients is it’s about getting as many different colours of fruit and vegetables into your diet as possible. “It may be because you’re changing the microbiome because there’s such a thing as a gut-brain axis. So we think that there’s a very strong relationship between what’s going on in our gut, and there’s quite a number of studies now showing the Mediterranean diet. It helps to improve cognitive health.” Brain games are important too: “Probably one of the most complicated things that we do in our brain is to really interact socially, and so that’s that is better than a crossword puzzle. Some of these brain games aren’t helpful. I think the thing is that what brain games tend to do is they tend to make you better At that brain game, you need to have lots of different brain games. You have to have lots of different brain games, which also, I guess, ties into why loneliness is another reason why loneliness is not good for us.” Finally, the third main thing was all about fitness. Prof Steves said: “So to improve your cognitive health, you need to do more exercise than you’re doing. Now, we can see effects even with minimal levels of exercise. So even being more up and about less sedentary time makes a difference. But then you can still make more difference by putting every egg on. So whatever you’re doing, if you go up by a third, you’ll be improving yourself.”