Doctor shares two essential things he does every week to slash dementia risk
It's an unfortunate truth that one in three of us will develop dementia in our lifetime and more than half of UK adults know someone who has been diagnosed with it.
According to the NHS, dementia is a syndrome associated with the ongoing decline of brain functioning and there are many different types, as well as different causes. Symptoms can include problems with memory loss, understanding, mental sharpness, thinking speed, language, and mood. Your movement can also be impacted. While there is currently no cure for dementia, an expert has explained how we can try and slash our risk of developing it later in life.
In a piece written for the Daily Mail, A&E Doctor Rob Galloway claimed that dementia was the condition he "feared the most" after working in healthcare as he'd seen how the "horrific" condition causes you to effectively "die years before your body does".
After seeing a young colleague be diagnosed with Alzheimer's (a form of dementia), Dr Galloway began questioning what he'd been taught about it. He shared how at the time he believed this was a case of "bad luck", due to genes causing excess protein to build up in the brain.
"But 20 years later, I'm now questioning what I was taught about the disease," he said. "Yes, there is a subset of Alzheimer's which is highly linked to specific genes - and that causes dementia at a very early age. However, this makes up fewer than one percent of cases."
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The expert acknowledged the existence of a breakthrough drug aducanumab, that removes amyloid plaques from the brain but said the results of it have been 'underwhelming'. As such he thinks we need to find something else to target to slash the risk. "Maybe we are targeting the wrong thing," he admitted. "What if amyloid is the smoke, but the fire that's actually burning down your house is something else."
As such he claimed that high blood pressure is something that needs to be looked at closer, as it has been linked to an increased risk of dementia, but "definitive proof" is lacking. A review of research published in The Lancet in 2020 also found that a lack of exercise raised the risk of dementia by 40 per cent, while smoking, obesity, and diabetes independently raised the risk by 60 per cent.
As such Dr Galloway shared two things he does every single week in order to try and reduce his own risk of developing dementia, he claims he makes sure to go running at least five times a week and regularly checks his blood pressure to ensure it's not getting too high.
He added: "Surveys show that people now fear dementia more than cancer. If that's you, I think there's a very positive message that you can significantly reduce your risk by doing a number of simple things: taking regular exercise, eating healthily (so you stay a healthy weight), not smoking, cutting back on alcohol and monitoring your blood pressure."
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