6 Ways to Lower Your Dementia Risk

Neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s dementia. Lewy Body Dementia and Parkinson’s disease are associated with the accumulation of abnormal proteins in the brain.

Beta-amyloid and tau proteins in Alzheimer’s dementia, alpha-synuclein in Parkinson’s disease, and Lewy Body dementia disease can accumulate in the brain and later affect brain function because of their toxic functions.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common neurodegenerative disease. Typically, it begins as disorientation and then proceeds to the gradual deterioration of memory, language, and self-care.

This article will discuss lifestyle changes anyone can make to increase the abnormal protein clearance through the glymphatics channels.

The glymphatic system is a system of fluid channels within the brain that clears abnormal proteins and toxins. How we sleep, alcohol intake, diet, and stress can increase or decrease the flow within the glymphatics and affect our risk of developing neurodegenerative diseases in old age.

Neurofibrillary tangles under a microscope. Normal neurons are on the side. Source: Wikipedia

Lifestyle Changes to Lower Dementia Risk

1. Sleep on your lateral side

An earlier post, Sleeping on Your Side can Prevent Dementia talked about how sleeping on the lateral side enhances the passage of toxins and abnormal proteins thru the glymphatic channels.

A good restful sleep especially sleeping on the right lateral side compared to the supine or prone position, increases the diameter of the glymphatic channels allowing more protein to pass thru.

These proteins exit the brain and get degraded in the liver.

2. Alcohol Consumption

Alcohol can be good or bad for glymphatic clearance depending on the dose. Acute and long-term exposure to high doses of alcohol (1gm/kg body weight) reduces glymphatic transport in mice.

Intermediate alcohol consumption acutely and chronically also decreases glymphatic clearance. The good news is that after 24 hours without alcohol, the glymphatic function is fully restored.

Low doses of alcohol, acutely and chronically (0.5gm/kg), increases the glymphatic clearance and reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

It is noteworthy that 1 – 2 drinks of alcohol in men and one drink in women are good for the blood pressure, but more than that can contribute to hypertension.

Nutrition heart.com has a calculator that can calculate how many grams of alcohol is in an alcoholic beverage. Be ready to put in the volume in ounces and % of alcohol in the beverage.

3. Omega-3 Consumption

Marine-based fish have omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n3-PUFAs). Studies have shown that higher levels of PUFAs correlate with a lower risk of dementia.

The brain is made up of n3-PUFAs. Omega 3s, aside from having anti-inflammatory properties, do a lot of good things for the brain. They help prevent beta-amyloid aggregation and promote their clearance and decrease their downstream toxicity.

Dietary supplementation can increase the flow of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain and increase glymphatic clearance.

Alzheimer’s patients who consume omega 3s from seafood have shown improvement in their cognitive decline.

Another way to supplement omega 3 fatty acids is in capsule forms like the Nordic Naturals Ultimate Omega.

4. Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting consists of many hours or even days of not eating. Black coffee, unsweetened tea, and water are allowed during the fasting period.

Fasting improves glymphatic clearance by widening the channels.

Fasting causes the liver to switch to fatty acid oxidation and produce β-hydroxybutyrate or BHB after 12 hours. BHB crosses the blood-brain barrier and acts as a histone deacetylase three (HDAC) inhibitor that has been shown to slow down Alzheimer’s disease progression.

Intermittent fasting can stimulate autophagy. Autophagy is the body’s way of recycling the amino acids of old, damaged, and useless proteins to make new proteins. Amyloid-beta, alpha-synuclein, and tau proteins are examples of proteins that can be recycled.

5. Exercise

Physical exercise increases the bulk glymphatic flow and improves memory and cognition in neurodegenerative diseases.

Research has shown that running over a 6-week period restored the protein balance in the brain, reduced inflammation, improved cognition, and reduced amyloid-beta deposition by increasing glymphatic clearance.

The WHO recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise a week.

6. Reduce Chronic Stress

Short-term stress is essential to adapt and survive. But just like anything else, too much is bad. Chronic stress increases the amount and deposition of amyloid-beta.

Stress triggers the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis to release glucocorticoids. The hypothalamus and pituitary are master glands in the brain. The adrenals are located above the kidneys. The HPA axis is responsible for regulating glucocorticoids, which affect almost all body functions like blood sugar and blood pressure.

Stress leads to higher levels of glucocorticoids leading to the formation of beta-amyloid.

25 Stress-Reduction Techniques

Parting Thoughts

I always ask my patients what their health goal is. The unanimous answer is that they want to remain independent and avoid the nursing home.

The proper lifestyle will avoid neurodegenerative diseases and other common chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and many more.

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Reference: Reddy OC, van der Werf YD. The Sleeping Brain: Harnessing the Power of the Glymphatic System through Lifestyle Choices. Brain Sci. 2020 Nov 17;10(11):868. doi: 10.3390/brainsci10110868. PMID: 33212927; PMCID: PMC7698404.

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Image Credit Neurofibrillary tangle By Mikael Häggström, M.D.- Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=93061076