How can we delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease?

Two activities have been shown to have more success at delaying Alzheimer's than anything else. HealthMaker Alvaro Fernandez explains what these helpful actions are in this video.

Transcript

00:00

On either preventing Alzheimer's disease or preventing cognitive decline, this was spinned to the media

00:06

as nothing prevents Alzheimer's disease, which is true. But that's not the whole truth. [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:17

The main two factors-- well, there's more than that. But the main two ones are aerobic exercise and mental exercise.

00:25

Then the whole answer is more complex. It's how you manage other factors like diabetes through both physical exercise, through nutrition.

00:34

But if we think of these key factors, there was an NIH evidence review in 2010 that was fascinating.

00:43

It was commissioned to an agency, I think part of the [INAUDIBLE]. But basically they evaluated any kind of intervention

00:50

you can imagine both invasive and non-invasive and what was their impact on either preventing Alzheimer

00:57

disease or preventing cognitive decline. This was spinned to the media as nothing prevents Alzheimer's

01:03

disease, which is true. But that's not the whole truth. If you actually take out the analysis,

01:10

what is very surprising is that, for example, aerobic exercise and cognitive training-- A couple of computer-based cognitive training programs

01:18

have more evidence that they can delay the onset of cognitive problems more than any vitamin

01:25

supplement, ginkgo biloba, including any kind of medicament. Despite the huge prescription levels

01:32

we have of many, many medicaments like Aricept-- so we have to rethink what are we doing, again, at the population level to maximize the cognitive health

01:42

to delay problem. [AUDIO LOGO]