16 Comments
User's avatar
Suzette Ciancio's avatar

Thank you, Dr. McBride! Another one to print out and put on my mirror!

Expand full comment
Dr. Chad Swanson's avatar

Outstanding. As a 52 year-old emergency physician , is important relevant stuff.

Expand full comment
Jessica Fellowes's avatar

Get vitamin B12 levels tested (low leads to memory loss) and folate, too. Dementia is inherited in less than 5% of cases, the rest is lifestyle (and luck).

Expand full comment
Julie's avatar

Thank you for this. Fab as always 💙

Expand full comment
JoAnne's avatar

Excellent recommendations that support cognitive function as well as many facets of our health. Dementia is a rough and scary disease. However, even following these protocols to delay or minimize the effects, if not eliminate them, are good reasons to follow them. 👍🏼

Expand full comment
TomD's avatar

Great information. But not sure if there's enough actual proof based on RCTs or other studies to know with any degree of certainty that these are effective. What I do know is that I utilize all of these in my daily life and they help me feel happier, more useful and connected. And that has to be positive for both my physical and mental well being. Highly recommend to everyone!

Expand full comment
Ken Medaris's avatar

One of the best columns ever, all are helpful, this may be the champ !!

Expand full comment
CynthiaWatson1's avatar

Always so clear, informative, and actionable. Thank YOU

Expand full comment
Mary Angela Sheridan's avatar

Agree entirely.

Expand full comment
Michael Teferi's avatar

Another phenomenal article, Dr. McBride! Much appreciated! I have been having sleep issues, whereby I go to sleep, and I wake up in the middle of the night to urinate afterwards. I continue to urinate around every hour, thereafter, until I eventually go to sleep again. I used to have sleep apnea, and I used a CPAP machine, yet doing exercise lowered my body weight to the point of not needing a CPAP machine afterwards. Lately however, here at Birmingham Green nursing home, my weight has gone up, so I started an early morning exercise routine to lose weight and feel wonderful, as a result. Unfortunately, my weight hasn’t been going down as much, so I don’t know what to do, nowadays. Any ideas, Dr. McBride?

Expand full comment
Chris Fehr's avatar

Asside from hearing aids which have gottem much better I dind't think there were many good options for hearing loss.

Expand full comment
Anne Wareham's avatar

I wonder. "If many remedies are prescribed for an illness you may be certain that the illness has no cure." Anton Chekhov

Expand full comment
Lisa Gee's avatar

Hi Lucy, thank you for your upbeat post however l feel that genetics is far more material than your article realises. My father ate well, played tennis and slept soundly but he still developed dementia. All his three siblings had dementia. More work is needed in the lab to combat this terrible illness as well as strokes which seem to be heavily related.

Expand full comment
Dr. Lucy McBride's avatar

Yes indeed - genetics absolutely play a role. My message here is that genetics are not the whole story. Thank you for sharing yours :)

Expand full comment
Dr. Lucy McBride's avatar

I edited this graf to make it more clear:

"Let's start with facts. Genetics play a role in your risk for dementia. Having a parent with dementia roughly doubles your risk of developing the condition. What that means in reality is that if your baseline risk was 10%, it becomes about 20%. That's still an 80% chance you won't develop the disease. (Of course, the actual risk for a particular individual varies widely person to person.)"

The question of nature/nurture (genetics/environment) is about *degrees* of influence. This will vary person to person.

Expand full comment
Mary Angela Sheridan's avatar

Informative and do -able. Am learning Russian as am interested in the country.

Expand full comment