Eat healthily. Live healthily. Be healthy.  How many times a day are we bombarded by that message?  I believe I’ve heard it so often that I’ve become deaf to it.  It just seems like rhetoric that’s easily ignored because it makes so much sense.  It has become sort of a “duh” kind of message.  Look both ways before crossing the street.  Don’t play on railroad tracks.  Don’t touch the burner when it’s red-hot.  Duh!

Well, for me, the “eat right, live right” mantra has recently taken on new meaning.  You see, I am turning sixty-five next week.  I don’t feel 65.  Some say that I don’t really even look sixty-five.  But, because I found my car keys in the trash can (wadded up with a disposable plastic sack), I decided I’d better do some research on preventing age-related dementia and/or Alzheimer’s disease.  Scattered in among all the research results, there was that message again.  Eat healthy. Live healthy.  Be healthy. 

I began this quest by trying to become familiar with the difference between dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Many people use them interchangeably. It didn’t take long for me to realize how truly ignorant I am on the topic.  One is an umbrella term that includes the other.  Dementia is a condition that can be caused by many things – including Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive brain disease that involves abnormal protein deposits building up in the brain and, resultantly, destroying brain cells.

Dementia comes from the Latin word demens (or dement) which meant “out of one’s mind.”  Now, that sounds a little harsh, doesn’t it? I picture dementia as a slow atrophying of the brain muscle.  So, to keep that muscle from shrinking, one needs to use it and exercise it.   For very obvious reasons, there are not many concrete clinical studies that confirm that, if we exercise that brain muscle and feed it correctly, we won’t develop dementia. Can you imagine scientists asking a group of people to sit around for twenty years eating chocolate bonbons and watching cartoons just to see if their brains fail to deteriorate?  Certainly, such a study is unlikely.  But studies of elderly people who retain cognition for most of their lives tend to share these characteristics.

EAT HEALTHILY.  According to just about every website I visited, we should all be eating more leafy green and more cruciferous vegetables.  (I can hear my mother now, “I told you that you needed to eat your Brussel sprouts because they’re good for your brain.”)  We should also be eating more berries, nuts, and spices (such as sage, cumin, and cinnamon).  We should all be avoiding excess amounts of red and processed meats, sweets, and alcohol.  Hey, I didn’t say this article was going to be fun to read. 

LIVE HEALTHILY.  It certainly seems obvious that we should pair eating right with exercising.  The encouraging news is that I don’t have to start training for a triathlon, but I do need to walk briskly more often or participate in some other form of aerobic activity.  Interestingly, most of the research I’ve found seems to indicate that, more than anything, I need to avoid sitting down for too long.  A sedentary lifestyle isn’t good for any part of the body. 

BE HEALTHY.  Before I retired from teaching, I think I considered myself a vital member of society.  The more time has passed, the less productive I feel.  A sort of melancholy has overtaken my spirit, which, probably more than any other single factor, makes me feel less cognitive.  I am going to don my youthful quest for knowledge as if it were an overcoat.  I’m going to exercise my brain by relearning how to play the piano, by reading more classic literature, by engaging in social activities that require me to have my wits about me, so to speak.  As Albert Einstein said, “Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.”

PDC Rx Contributor: Joanna Rasp