This follows up on the Lancet article on ways to improve brain health. This dovetails that, but talks about it in different terms, which may be easier to understand.
- Heart health matters. All the things that lead to heart disease- high LDL cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure- are all related to increased dementia risk. This is why we like our detailed cholesterol panel, all the blood sugar control things- our probiotic, CGM monitors to see your pattern, insulin resistance panel to see where you are at currently, and weight loss.
- Exercise. This is also well known. I have seen many variations of how much you “need.” CDC recommends you get 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity weekly (i.e. you break out in a sweat and/or get your heart rate up). Studies have shown exercise helps improve verbal fluency, memory, attention, and executive functioning. They hypothesize that it increases the volume of your hippocampus, the area of the brain that deals with learning and memory.
- Be social. Again and again, we see how important interpersonal relationships are. The blue zones, superagers, avoiding dementia- turns out humans are social and we need interaction. You will see this in many of my brain blogs. So play pickleball, start a book club, volunteer.
- Challenge your brain. Do something new every day. People always talk about the brain is like a muscle and needs to be exercised with reading, puzzles, instruments. They postulate that this makes neuron connections which maintains brain health. (Read our blogs. That is new great information to stimulate those neurons.)
- Vitamin check. This really is only valuable if you are deficient in a vitamin. So do a blood check– we at Biohackr Health can check levels of D, B12, and our micronutrient assay.
- Stimulate all your senses. The Lancet article discusses being hard of hearing and losing vision as being two contributing causes to dementia. So check these things. If you need glasses, glaucoma surgery, a hearing aid, DO IT.
- Protect your head from injuries. According to the Alzheimer Association, if you have had a head injury, years later it can lead to 2-4X risk of Alzheimers. So wear helmets, check your bone density, improve your balance, use poles when hiking.
- Sleep hygiene. High quality sleep is important for brain health. Limit screens before bed, limit light pollution (which has been linked to Alzheimers), treat sleep apnea if you have it.
- Limit stress. Ha! Easier said than done. Did you know that meditation also lowers depression, anxiety, and blood sugar? Studies have shown non-practicioners doing just 10 minutes a day show statistically significant improvements. They even did a randomized study of lying down and relaxing vs. meditation/breathwork- statistically significant difference to meditate.
How can Biohackr Health help?
We help with cholesterol, blood sugar (monitoring, levels, treatments, probiotics). We help with weight loss. We can test micronutrients and treat the deficiencies with NSF-certified supplements or IV supplements.
You will notice themes in these blogs about how to have better brain health. They overlap with the blogs about heart health, healthspan, avoiding diabetes. There is a reason for that. Different published scientific studies prove over and over that these things matter. Start early to age better. Figure out what YOUR issues are and fix them.
Optimize you.
