Dementia is the UK’s biggest killer

That’s a frightening fact but can you reduce your chances of developing dementia? Read on to find out more…

You may know someone with dementia or have suffered the loss of a loved one who had dementia. It is heart-wrenching to watch someone who may otherwise be healthy, decline in their capacity to live a normal life. If you are currently caring for someone with dementia, make sure to reach out to get all the support you can to help you stay in good health. Carers are too important to be neglected.

If you have experience of dementia or you’ve found out that more people in the UK die from dementia / Alzheimer’s than any other cause, you might be worried about your own future health. Thanks to the research undertaken in recent years and the power of the internet, we have a chance that our older relatives didn’t enjoy – to make choices to reduce our risk of developing dementia.

The good news

40% of dementia cases could be prevented by reducing risk factors. If you asked ten dementia sufferers if they wish they had taken some steps to reduce the risk of developing this condition, would at least 4 of them say yes? I’m going to guess that all or nearly all wish they’d known what to do. Like all preventable diseases, the heart-breaking reality is that most of us only make changes once it’s too late – we just don’t think it’s going to happen to us.

That doesn’t mean we should live our lives in fear but it should cause us all to ask ourselves some questions about how we want to live in later life. How can we avoid those risk factors? What are they?

Risk factors 

• Unhealthy diet
• Being overweight
• Lack of exercise 
• Drinking too much alcohol
• Smoking
• Blood pressure
• Loss of hearing
• Depression left untreated
• Lack of social contact or loneliness 
• Sitting for too long during the day

How can we reduce the risk?

Eat more fruit and veg. Balancing our diet doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming or boring. Focus on healthy foods you enjoy and include them in your diet more often. Try to make some swaps to make your diet healthier – baked potatoes for chips / fruit for sweets / soup for lunch instead of a sausage roll. If you eat a lot of red meat, try to replace those meals with fish or white meat and save the steak or burger or mince for a once a week choice rather than for multiple meals. You don’t have to cut carbs completely to be healthier but you could start to look at how much protein you consume and how often. Protein leaves us feeling fuller for longer and can help us avoid those energy crashes that have us reaching for quick snacks.

Lose a pound or two. Don’t be discouraged if you struggle to lose weight, your mindset has a huge role to play in helping you improve your health. Be honest about your need to lose weight and the factors getting in your way. Try some really simple eating rules for yourself like not eating between meals or no eating after 8pm – your way might look different from mine but as long as it works for you, do it! Meal planning is often a big help in making our diets healthier and contributing to weight loss. It is an investment of time but it’s often easier to make healthier, tastier meals when they’re planned out than when you rock up to the kitchen unprepared and starving – that’s a sure fire way to be making some poor choices!

Get your step count up. Does your smart phone keep a count? Use it. Why not set yourself a daily target? Reaching those targets is going to give you a dopamine kick every time, as well as the other benefits of increasing your activity levels. That can be all the motivation you need and you wouldn’t be the first person striding round your living room or running up and down the stairs to make sure you’ve got your steps in! Who cares how you do it as long as you do it.

Reduce your booze intake. If you’re having more than one drink a day for females or two for males, research shows that you are negatively impacting your health. That might sound harsh but is that extra glass of wine or pint of beer really worth the risk? Most of us reduce our alcohol intake once we move on from those heavy partying days of our youth but lockdowns and working from home put more people in a position to access alcohol more easily and to develop drinking habits which can be hard to shake. If you are serious about improving your current and future health, take a long hard look at your alcohol consumption. It will be worth it in the end.

Get help to quit smoking. There are numerous websites and organisations to support you because, let’s face it, the only ones who benefit from keeping smokers smoking are the tobacco companies. So how quickly will you benefit? After only a few hours is the amazing answer. That’s all it takes for your oxygen levels to improve and carbon monoxide in your system to drop significantly. In fact, it only takes 2 days for all the carbon monoxide to be expelled and another day for your bronchial tubes to relax, making breathing easier. Your circulation takes a few weeks to recover and your lung function improves as the months go by. After a year, you have halved your heart attack risk. After ten years, you have halved your risk of dying from lung cancer.

Maintain healthy blood pressure. One way to make sure of this is to monitor your blood pressure. Some chemists offer this service but if you find you have high blood pressure, you might want to invest in your own monitor so that you can keep a regular eye on it. The problem with blood pressure is that you can’t always tell if it’s at the right level. High blood pressure can sneak up on you even if you seem perfectly fit and otherwise healthy. You can take medication to keep your blood pressure healthy but if you’d rather avoid that, there are lifestyle adjustments you can make to bring down your blood pressure and keep it down. Reducing consumption of red meat and alcohol, increasing consumption of fruit and veg, drinking plenty of water and exercising more are all proven ways to improve your blood pressure.

Act on hearing loss. This one surprises a lot of people but experiencing hearing loss can be a sign of dementia or can lead to a greater risk of developing dementia. The science behind it makes sense. Some people have hearing loss because the part of their brain that deals with language has been damaged by the onset of dementia. Dealing with this early symptom can help to reduce the overall impact of the disease so if you or someone you know suspects their hearing is impaired, get it checked. Even if hearing loss is not an indication of the onset of dementia, research shows that the changes in the brain caused by the difficulty in interpreting sounds can lead to dementia. The good news is that people with hearing loss who wear hearing aids have better outcomes than those who don’t, which is one of the easier ways to reduce a dementia risk.

Deal with depression. Dealing with anything when you’re depressed is a struggle but it’s important to recognise that asking for help works in your favour in the long term as well as in the present. There is often a delay in depression sufferers seeking assistance but usually, the faster treatment is started, the quicker symptoms improve. Do not listen to anyone who tells you to pull yourself together or other such useless advice. Depression is an illness from which most people make a full recovery but the right treatment and support is essential, the sooner the better.

Connect. Loneliness and isolation are difficult for many older people but can cause real problems at any age. The classic advice to join a club or group still applies but there are plenty of suggestions to alleviate feelings of isolation before they create additional issues like depression and anxiety. One way that may not be immediately obvious is to find a way to help others. Community groups are always looking for volunteers and getting involved in your community is a sure fire way to widen your social network, or at least spend time with others and have somewhere to go.

Stand up for yourself. Not necessarily like that but if your lifestyle is mostly sedentary, you could be storing up future problems. The solution is simply to stand up or move about more if you can. Standing desks would have been unthinkable not so long ago but some people are even installing treadmills at their work station to guarantee their daily steps and avoid excessive inactivity. It wouldn’t be possible for everyone so if sitting for long periods is unavoidable for you, add in any movement you can, when you can. 

Here’s to living longer and living better.