Want to prevent dementia? Here are a few healthy, low-risk, science-backed approaches to lowering your risk.

Dementia has no cure. And while there is no guaranteed way to prevent it, there are several lifestyle choices that may contribute to protecting against it — maintaining your brain health and reducing the risk of cognitive decline.

In fact, studies show that 40 percent of dementia cases worldwide could be prevented with certain lifestyle and environmental changes. Here are five strategies according to the Alzheimer’s Disease International’s new 2023 World Alzheimer’s Report. “The phrase ‘prevention is better than cure’ is not just a trite saying, but a call to action,” the report authors wrote. The report digs into specific ways to stave off a diagnosis and argues that it’s never too early — nor too late — to focus on dementia risk reduction approaches, from reducing alcohol consumption and smoking, to eating healthy diet and getting plenty of exercise, to socializing and continued learning. Here are six science-backed things you can do today to protect your brain health.

1. Surprise, suprise: Eat a healthy diet

“You are what you eat,” wrote Simon Long, the lead author of the 2023 World Alzheimer’s Report. Eating a fiber-rich diet, unprocessed foods, fruits and vegetables, and avoiding too much meat and fat is beneficial.

But Long wrote that Dr. Robert Friedland, a neurologist at the University of Louisville, “stresses diet diversity” in opposition to hyper-specific diets. “It is important to eat different things,” Dr. Friedland told Alzheimer’s Disease International in the report.

Dr. Oliver Shannon, a lecturer in nutrition and aging at Newcastle University, advocates “moving away from looking at individual compounds, to whole-diet approaches.” The reason is that while people may want to adjust their eating habits, it’s more difficult to persuade life-long radical changes.

Shannon, Long wrote, “highlights the benefits that even relatively modest changes can have,” like “using more olive oil [or] swapping beer for a glass of wine.”

2. Hard of hearing? Consider hearing aids

Getting hearing aids has been described by Alzheimer’s Disease International as a “game changer” in slowing cognitive decline.

Hearing loss, especially if you do not address it with hearing aids or other hearing care, can increase your likelihood of cognitive decline. Because communicating with people and staying engaged in social interaction is vital for supporting brain health, not addressing hearing loss can accelerate cognitive decline. In fact, some of the symptoms associated with hearing loss can signal cognitive decline. That’s also why recent research suggests that care homes should provide hearing loss help for residents.

According to Gill Livingston, a professor in the psychiatry of older people at University College London who leads The Lancet commission, “People with hearing loss are about twice as likely to develop dementia.” Meanwhile, hearing aids might “alleviate cognitive load,” the report states, meaning social interaction is enhanced, loneliness is less likely and therefore, so is the possibility of depression — all of which are risk factors for dementia.

3. Get healthy sleep

Sleep was not included in The Lancet’s list of risk factors, and Long wrote that studies done on sleep’s impact on cognitive health have mixed results. But research does “suggest that poor sleep patterns in middle age may contribute to a higher risk of dementia later in life.” Research does point to sleep being essential to the immune system doing important work to clean out the gunk that builds up in the brain and can eventually lead to neurodegeneration.

Sandra Giménez, a clinical neurophysiologist at the Global Brain Health Institute, says that the treatment of “obstructive sleep apnea” — a relatively common condition in which proper breathing is disrupted while asleep — by a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) mask “seems to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s.”

4. Keep learning to build your “cognitive reserve”

According to Long, autopsies done on the brains of people who never showed any signs of cognitive decline “are riddled with the pathology of Alzheimer’s.” This is the concept of “cognitive reserve,” as explained by neurologists, and it’s possible that the “best way” to enhance this “reserve” is to “get an education early in life,” Long wrote.

But after one finishes the average and required full-time education (at around 18 years old), the building of the “reserve” does not end. “So long as the brain is exercised, it can retain and add reserve,” Long wrote.

Ways in which to “add reserve” can take on different forms: crossword puzzles, learning new languages and playing an instrument can all help.

But does the chosen brain exercise necessarily need to be challenging? Dr. Gary Small, a psychiatrist at the University of California, Los Angeles, says “There is something about challenging yourself that keeps you mentally crisp.”

5. Socialize

Social engagement and human connection means better brain health. Depression and social isolation are two of The Lancet’s modifiable risk factors. “Unsurprisingly, a healthy mind is more resilient to dementia than one with an illness,” Long wrote. Studies have shown that increased social connection has benefits in staving off dementia. Depression can speed up the aging of the brain, as older adults with depression are twice as likely to develop dementia.

But social isolation is not always a lifestyle choice, but the result of ostracization.

Chloé Benoist, Alzheimer’s Disease International’s (ADI) publication’s manager, notes that dementia risk in the LGBTQI+ community is increased due to the discrimination they face, which could lead to increased social isolation, and in turn, depression. “Tackling prejudice should be an essential component of risk reduction efforts within the community and beyond,” Benoist wrote.

ADI recommends maintaining social connections: “humans are social animals; socializing replenishes our brain health and reduces depression and isolation.”

6. Manage existing health problems

Did you know mild cognitive impairment — which often goes on to develop into dementia — can be caused by all manner of underlying health conditions, from hormonal imbalances to depression, B12 deficiency to thyroid dysfunction? And many of these underlying conditions are treatable. Treating existing disorders can have a protective effect on your neurological health.

And if you want to do all you can to prevent Alzheimer’s disease, control and manage chronic health conditions associated with Alzheimer’s, such as diabetes, hypertension, and — hello — high cholesterol.

While there may not be a cure for dementia, ADI asserts that changes can be made as individuals and as a society to reduce the risk of a diagnosis. And dementia’s precursor cognitive symptoms — called mild cognitive decline or MCI — may well be treatable and even reversible, depending on their underlying cause.

“Even the smallest of changes can make a difference,” the report authors state, “and we owe it to our loved ones, our communities, but most of all to ourselves, to try.”

If you find our articles and interviews helpful, please consider becoming a supporting member of our community. Frustrated by the lack of an editorially independent source of information on brain health and Alzheimer’s disease, we decided to create Being Patient. We are a team of dedicated journalists covering the latest research on Alzheimer’s, bringing you access to the experts and elevating the patient perspective on what it’s like to live with dementia.

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Want to prevent dementia? Here are a few healthy, low-risk, science-backed approaches to lowering your risk.