Series
Preventing Dementia
Dementia is now the leading cause of death in Australia. Decades of pharmaceutical research have produced modest results because, by the time symptoms appear, the disease has been progressing silently for fifteen to thirty years. The real hope lies earlier — in the modifiable risk factors that shape the trajectory of every brain during midlife.
Each article takes one lever — vascular health, metabolism, movement, sleep, hormones, hearing and social engagement, brain plasticity, and the supplements and medications with genuine evidence — and works through it with the same discipline: what is well-supported, what is overhyped, and what to do this week. The closing article pulls it all together into a decade-by-decade prevention framework.
4 parts
- Part 1 8 min read
The Case for Prevention in Dementia
Dementia is now Australia's leading cause of death. The drugs are modest. But close to half of all cases are theoretically preventable — and the evidence behind that claim should change how we approach the second half of life.
- Part 2 8 min read
How the Brain Ages — and How Much of "Normal" Decline Actually Isn't
Some cognitive change with age is real and biological. But the trajectory most people accept as normal is also the sum of decades of preventable vascular damage, untreated sensory loss, and a slow decline in the demands we place on our brains.
- Part 3 8 min read
The Vascular Brain
The most important thing you can do for your brain in midlife has nothing to do with your brain. It has to do with your arteries. Here is the evidence.
- Part 4 8 min read
The Metabolic Brain
Blood sugar runs on a continuum, and so do its consequences for the brain. The drifting line in a decade of "normal" blood tests is where prevention begins.