While there is no sure-fire way to prevent Alzheimer’s disease, there are some things that you can do to decrease your risk of developing the disease. Several things are well-established to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease while others are still being investigated to determine if they do indeed decrease disease risk (for a discussion of the latter, see “Recent Research and Developments in Alzheimer’s Disease”). The factors that are currently thought to be preventative measures for Alzheimer’s disease follow.

Blood pressure, cholesterol

Lowering your blood pressure and blood cholesterol levels reduces your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. These two changes also improve heart health and circulation and the connection may not just be coincidental. It may be that high blood pressure and cholesterol contribute to reduced heart function and to vascular disease in the brain, both of which can disrupt the supply of oxygen and nutrients to delicate brain tissue. This could cause sensitive cells to die and hasten the development of a neurological disease like Alzheimer’s.

Diabetes

Diabetes, especially poorly controlled diabetes, can also increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. This may be because the high blood sugar that characterizes diabetes can also cause vascular damage in the brain, causing poor circulation and possibly neural cell death. Controlling your diabetes can help reduce this risk.

Physical activity

Maintaining overall physical health reduces the risk of many types of diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease. Physical activity improves circulation and also enhances overall mental function, both of which could prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

Keeping an active brain

Studies show that people, especially older adults, who often engage in mentally stimulating activities, are as much as 50% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. The activities don’t have to be especially complicated either; listening to the radio, reading newspapers, playing puzzle games, and going to museums all help reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s. Apparently, maintaining mental fitness may delay onset of dementia. This may occur because increased development of neuronal connections (which occurs with mental activity) may make the brain more resistant to the effects of Alzheimer’s. That is, if you start out with more connections, you may be able to lose a few of them before cognitive symptoms become noticeable.

Education

The more educated you are, the less likely you are to get Alzheimer’s disease. It is unclear why this is true, but one idea is that more education gives a person more experience with the types of memory tests used to measure dementia so they are better at taking them. Thus, people with more education may just be able to cover up their condition better and for longer than less educated people can. Another possible reason for this effect of education is that people with more education have spent and continue to spend more time keeping their brains active, which develops more neural connections and may make their brain more resistant to the effects of Alzheimer’s.

Social engagement

Having lots of friends and acquaintances and participating in many social activities is associated with reduced cognitive decline and decreased risk of Alzheimer’s disease in older adults. Being socially active also lowers the risk of depression.

Delaying Alzheimer’s onset

Many of these factors that decrease the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease may actually just delay its onset. That said, delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s is an important step in fighting the disease. If the onset of Alzheimer’s could be postponed by just five years, it would dramatically reduce the number of people who have the disease. For example, if you would normally develop the disease at 80, a five year delay means you would not develop Alzheimer’s until age 85. At that point, the early symptoms would be less bothersome, and by the time the disease progressed to an advanced stage, you may no longer be around to suffer the symptoms.