This stems from an article I was reading about a neurologist from Mass General who developed a short questionnaire to try to predict people’s risk for brain issues as they age: dementia, stroke, and depression. The interesting thing about this is some of these are health, and some are social, and all are things you can actively treat to reduce your risk. The neurologist, Dr. Jonathan Rosand, calls it the Brain Care Score.
So what did it prioritize?
What Factors Affect Brain Health?
- Blood pressure. Anything above 120/80 contributes to the score.
- HBA1c. This looks at the average of your blood sugar over the course of 3 months. This is a broad indicator of insulin resistance and when elevated, indicates pre-diabetes or diabetes. Anything above 5.7 gets you points.
- Cholesterol. Above 190 gets you points, but treating your cholesterol to get it below that removes the point bump.
- BMI. Anything above the healthy BMI (18.5-25)
- Diet. They look at how many servings of fruit and veggies, lean protein, whole grains, lower sodium, and rare sugar sweet beverages like soda and juice.
- Alcohol. 0-1 drinks no points, anything more gets points.
- Smoking
- Aerobic exercise. 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of high intensity (sweaty) a week
- Sleep. At least 7 hours of sleep
- Stress. (see below)
- Social relationships. They define this as at least 2 people other than your spouse or children who you feel close to and could talk about private matters/call if you need help
- Meaning in life. Do you have meaning and purpose?
When you take the test, they give you a score, including ways to improve that area. Most of the fixes for the above are evident.
I was curious about their stress management and resiliency training to reduce stress. They talk about SMART goals. S= specific, M= measurable, A= attainable, R= relevant, and T= time-based. The example they use is instead of saying “exercise more,” a SMART goal is to say, “I am going to walk 30 minutes at least 3 times a week.”
How Can Biohackr Health Help?
- TEST. Do our insulin resistance panel and comprehensive cholesterol panel to get a deep dive into your profile.
- CGM monitor. This is a continuous glucose monitor, and we recommend everyone who has a HbA1c over 5.0 do it to see what their triggers are and how treatments affect it.
- MEDICATIONS: Metformin and semaglutide/tirzepatide (GLP-1 agonists) help with insulin resistance. Semaglutide and Tirzepatide help with weight loss. There may be a separate benefit of the GLP-1 agonists due to anti-inflammatory effects. See our blogs on semaglutide’s lowering effect on dementia progression and risk as shown in published studies.
- LOSE WEIGHT. If your BMI is over 27, consider our weight loss options. Not only will this help with BMI, but it can help with sleep apnea, blood pressure, and blood sugar.
- PROBIOTIC. Our proprietary blend has bacterial strains known to help with glucose control. Again see our blogs on published studies.
- GET EDUCATED. Follow our blog and click on the topics which interest you. We strive for evidence based information on how to age better and include links to the original articles, published studies, and sources. To get blog titles sent to you weekly so you can see what we are talking about.
- Take the Brain Care Score Test yourself.
