Summary
It's never too early or too late to reduce your risk of developing dementia.
⏱ 1 min read
What are the things you should do to promote brain health?
- Be physically active
- Keep moving and reduce your sedentary time
- Sleep well
- Manage your weight and diet
- Stay fit and maintain a healthy weight
- Eat healthy
- Look after your blood vessels
- Control your blood pressure
- Manage diabetes if you have it
- Monitor and manage high cholesterol
- Cigarettes and alcohol
- Don’t smoke
- If you drink alcohol, drink less
- Stay cognitively and socially active
- Stay curious and keep your brain stimulated
- Stay social
- Look after your hearing and vision
- Protect your ears from excessive noise exposure
- Get your hearing checked
- Use hearing aids if you have hearing loss
- Monitor your eye health and treat vision loss
- Manage other health conditions and medications
- Prevent traumatic brain injury
- Review your medications regularly
Download the summary handout.
Key points from this topic
- There’s a lot you can do to promote brain health and reduce your risk of dementia
- Lifestyle changes with a range of modifiable risk factors may help you to prevent dementia
- The more you can do, the better
- These healthy lifestyle habits are good for your overall health in addition to promoting brain health and reducing your risk of other chronic conditions like cancer
- Start with small changes that you can maintain – aim for progress, not perfection
Ready to dive in?
Take our 30-minute lesson on how to promote brain health and reduce your risk of developing dementia.
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How to Promote Brain Health
Learn more about how lifestyle choices, blood vessel health and other health conditions can impact your brain health. (30 minutes)
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What other people are saying:
"This study has been a real eye-opener, as it has educated and informed me on concepts I previously did not associate with the risk of developing dementia." - Study participant, 25-34 years old.
"Informative, not overwhelming. It helped me to consider my own actions and allowed me to talk to my older parents to encourage them to be more proactive about their health." - Study participant, 35-44 years old.
"This is a very timely topic as I look around and see friends and relatives coping with the effects of dementia." - Study participant, 65-74 years old.
"Each topic was well focussed. The medical terminology was easy to understand and very informative." - Study participant, 65-74 years old.
Authors
_jpg.tmb-thumb200.jpg?Culture=en&sfvrsn=bcb0dd6_1 "Anthony Levinson")
Anthony J. Levinson, MD, MSc, FRCPC
Neuropsychiatrist, Professor; Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University
About this Project
Who authored and edited this page?
This page was developed by the Division of e-Learning Innovation team and Dr. Anthony J. Levinson, MD, FRCPC (Psychiatry). Dr. Levinson is a psychiatrist and professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behaviour Neurosciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University. He is the Director of the Division of e-Learning Innovation, as well as the John Evans Chair in Health Sciences Educational Research at McMaster. He practices Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry, with a special focus on dementia and neuropsychiatry. He is also the co-developer of the iGeriCare.ca dementia care partner resource, and one of the co-leads for the McMaster Optimal Aging Portal. He and his team are passionate about developing high-quality digital content to improve people's understanding about health. By the way, no computer-generated content was used on this page. Specifically, a real human (me) wrote and edited this page without the help of generative AI like ChatGPT or Bing's new AI or otherwise.
Are there any important disclosures or conflicts of interest?
Dr. Levinson receives funding from McMaster University as part of his research chair. He has also received several grants for his work from not-for-profit granting agencies. He has no conflicts of interest with respect to the pharmaceutical industry; and there were no funds from industry used in the development of this website.
When was it last reviewed?
September 18, 2024
What references and evidence were used to create this content?
Content was written and adapted based on credible, high-quality, non-biased sources such as MedlinePlus, the National Institutes for Mental Health, the McMaster Optimal Aging Portal, the American Psychiatric Association, the Cochrane Library, the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health (CAMH) and others. In particular, evidence-based content about dementia risk reduction was also derived from the World Health Organization and the 2020 and 2024 Lancet Commission reports. Please see additional references on the e-learning lesson landing page.
Who funded it?
The initial development of some of this content was funded by the Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation, powered by Baycrest. Subsequent funding was through support from the McMaster Optimal Aging Portal, with support from the Labarge Optimal Aging Initiative, the Faculty of Health Sciences, and the McMaster Institute for Research on Aging (MIRA) at McMaster University, and the Public Health Agency of Canada. There are no conflicts of interest to declare. There was no industry funding for this content.
