Can Diet and Exercise Lower Your Risk of Dementia?

By Kevin Ritchart

An ongoing Australian clinical trial is examining whether modifying diet, exercise, and other habits can slow — or even prevent — cognitive decline or dementia as people age.

For the past three years, about 6,000 middle-aged and elderly Australian citizens have been lifting weights, eating better, reducing stress levels, and taking part in computer exercises, all to preserve their brain function.

These folks are part of a clinical trial called “Maintain Your Brain,” which is one of about 30 ongoing and upcoming studies that aim to forego the use of drug treatments and instead focus on changing habits as a means of improving brain health.

“There’s a lot of hope for multidomain trials,” said psychologist Kaarin Anstey of the University of New South Wales, Sydney, one of the principal investigators of the “Maintain Your Brain” trial, which will finish by the end of 2021.

Lifestyle Changes

While it’s essentially impossible to escape some level of mental decline as we age, the type of lifestyle we lead can have a powerful effect on the risk of developing dementia including severe conditions like Alzheimer’s disease.

In 2020, an international committee of doctors known as the Lancet Commission on Dementia Prevention, Intervention, and Care estimated that “modifiable factors” like diabetes, high blood pressure, smoking, obesity, and lack of exercise account for approximately 40 percent of dementia risk.

Researchers are still examining how these factors can rob a person’s cognitive faculties, but they’ve made some headway. For instance, lack of physical activity may impair cognition because exercise stimulates the formation of new neurons and soothes brain inflammation.

A Diverse Approach

The key to “Maintain Your Brain” seems to be that it focuses on multiple risk factors.

Most randomized trials that have focused on only one aspect of lifestyle have come up empty. Many researchers agree that trials like “Maintain Your Brain” offer a better chance of returning meaningful results.

And it seems like other countries are now following Australia’s lead and setting up trials that focus on multiple factors. A similar U.S. study called “Protecting Brain Health Through Lifestyle Intervention to Reduce Risk” is scheduled to be completed in 2024.

Whether lifestyle changes can slow the effects of dementia or other signs of cognitive decline remains unproven for now, but researchers are hopeful that continuing research on the subject will yield more concrete results.