The best way to reduce your risk of dementia is to adapt various aspects of your lifestyle, including eating certain foods, taking regular exercise, not smoking, and maintaining normal blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Evidence shows that a diet rich in fruit, vegetables, and cereals, and low in red meat and sugar could help reduce dementia risks. However, nutrition and dietary components are challenging to research with controversies still raging around the role of many micronutrients and health outcomes in dementia, which is why what to eat, what not to eat, how often and how much is constantly in the news.
In this ISTAART Research Perspectives Special, Fernando Peres and Dr Clara Domínguez Vivero get two perspectives on diet and nutrition and its connections to cognition and dementia, from the researcher and the person who lives with the disease.
This time we are joined by Dr Claire McEvoy, Senior Lecturer in Nutrition and Ageing Research at Queens University Belfast. Claire is a Dietitian and Senior Atlantic Fellow at the Global Brain Health Institute. Her research investigates the role of nutrition (particularly plant-based diets) and other lifestyle behaviours in age-related disease, with a special interest in cognitive decline. Her focus is on epidemiologic investigation of diet and dementia risk across the life-course, and the design and evaluation of interventions targeting behaviour change to improve cognitive health and well-being.
Our second perspective comes from Dr Daniel Gibbs, Retired Neurologist from Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, USA. Daniel retired in 2013 due to developing Mild Cognitive Impairment due to Alzheimer’s disease. Since then, he has been studying and writing about his own brain and disease for a book titled ‘A Tattoo on my Brain: A Neurologist’s Personal Battle against Alzheimer’s Disease’. He has also continued to work on several journal papers and has a blog https://www.tattooonmybrain.com
Find out more about our hosts and guests and review a full transcript of this podcast on our website at:
https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/podcast-diet-and-alzheimers-disease-istaart-research-perspectives/
For information on ISTAART visit:
http://www.alz.org/istaart
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This podcast is brought to you in association with Alzheimer's Association, Alzheimer's Research UK and Alzheimer's Society, who we thank for their ongoing support.
