dementia is it inevitable or are there things you can do to avoid it oh thankfully I hope it's the latter all right let's climb this ladder of dementia welcome to talking with docs I'm Dr Brad weening and I'm Dr Paul Z forgot to introduce yourself there yeah right so I'm going to talk about a report okay a dementia prevention intervention and Care 2024 report of the Lancet standing commission demen prevented intervention say that five times vention prevention and prevention it Rhymes this is a big report okay but this is a summary of what this working
group put together to teach people how they can avoid getting dementia and guess what percentage of dementia they estimate is preventable I'm going to say half 50% around 50% not half around 50% of dementias preventable the type of dementias we're talking about is Alzheimer's disease vascular dementia Louis body dementia frontal temporal dementia mix dementia all dementias lots of dementias it's a family of dementias when I think too like 40 years ago there weren't really task forces that talked about this for a host of reasons people weren't sick they didn't live as long we didn't know
as much about it and now we're we're becoming overwhelmed the stats that I read in Canada in 2022 750,000 people were living with Alzheimer's or some other type of dementia was listed to the number nine cause of death of all caused death guaranteed every one of our viewers viewers yes know someone who has dementia or know someone who is dealing with a family member with Dementia or may even have dementia themselves if you have some advice actually for people who are living with this or living with a family member please share a comment because this
is a community that certainly can help support each other in a very difficult time absolutely okay all right so we just going to run through they came up with 14 modifiable risk factors okay so we're not going through the whole report it's too it's too big it's too big okay so 14 mod iable risk factors we're not saying that they're easy to modify it's just like your diet or changing your lifestyle say hey have less stress hey get more sleep you know these are modifiable don't get dementia but it takes it takes some effort and
um you obviously do as many as you can yeah and you want to start early early as early as poss as you'll see with some of these risk factors okay so let's start with the first one that they identified uh if you have less education you're at increased risk of dementia and obviously this is a very difficult one because people don't don't choose to not go further in school necessarily no and the definition of education is varied right is it a formal education in school or is it some courses you take or something you teach
yourself but in any case get your brain working keep your brain working okay it's not too late to get more education there's lots of free online courses you can take in a variety of subjects uh watch talking with docs that's educational yeah it is we're helping you y okay I like that one so so number two is is decreased hearing I suspect this is for for a host of reasons because you become less engaged you have a harder time probably learning and things like that so the way that this is modifiable obviously is get your
hearing tested I'm not exactly sure the recommendations right now it probably depends on your symptoms um but as we get older hearing aids certainly are practical solution they're much less kind of uh large right now like they used to be really really big but they're they're very subtle nowaday it's very very common um Unfortunately they can be expensive um thankfully some of the uh government PL do cover them but yeah I think getting your hearing tested and dealing with reduced hearing or hearing loss is really important or just listen to Dr weening he talks loud
I do talk loud and then the other thing I would say is for younger people who don't have this yet is wear protective hearing so when you're running a chainsaw or the lawn mower even at concerts or airpods whatever respect your hearing and try to protect it in advance that's a good one too it's not just wearing hearing aids but it's don't do the damage being around loud noises yes the next one is very common many of viewers have this are dealing with this hypertension hypertension was identified as a modifiable risk factor why is hypertension
modifiable because you can take medications or do lifestyle changes that can bring your blood pressure down to a normal level and the reason that this matters for dementia is likely because of its effect on the small blood vessels that feed our brain that's right okay so that's number three number four is is smoking um obviously there are a zillion reasons to not smoke we recognize that this is very difficult takes multiple attempts at quitting an organized strategy but please don't start smoking if you have started please try to stop would you say there's a zillion
in one now yeah maybe maybe okay the next one is and nobody's going to like hearing this is your body weight yep your body mass index if that is elevated this report identified that as a risk for getting dementia so if there's no other reason for you to try and lose weight let this be one of them okay very difficult to do but very important to do for a host of reasons obviously number six is depression so people that are depressed have a higher incidence of Alzheimer's and other types of dementia developing over time so
do you say oh hey don't be depressed well it's obviously not that simple what's most important is that if you do have signs or symptoms of depression or know someone that does get them to see their primary care doctor and get appropriate treatment that's the thing depression is treatable you don't have to suffer on your own it is treatable through a variety of ways we're not experts in managing that but we do have a lot of patients who do live with depression y and this has been identified as a modifiable risk factor for dementia and
becoming more common sadly and more recognized more socially normalized JY ads on TV there's a lot of there's a lot of social awareness now so just go get that treated if you think you have that okay the next one is none of our viewers suffer from this because we harp about it all the time physical inactivity physical inactivity is a risk factor for dementia okay if you haven't had a reason before to get up your feet and jump around now you do okay get active and actually I was listening to a podcast with my wife
yesterday about a whole bunch of things about anxiety and depression and this expert from Harvard was talking about something that you had said you know sitting is the new standing and about how sitting is the new SM sorry sitting is the new smoking sorry right sitting is not the this topic is dementia right so sitting is the new smoking and you just have to get up and do something and and start small it doesn't have to be something a really high intensity or for very long just do your best to do something get that's it
okay number eight is diabetes um so diabetes obviously in the type one situation is not particularly modifiable that's very treatable the type two is probably the more modifiable of the two so trying to maintain a healthy weight and activity to reduce your chances of developing things like insulin resistance and type two diabetes so if you do have it try to modify it to get rid of it if you have it already see your family doctor and get a treated get it treated that will reduce your chance of demension do I have to say the next
one you do actually reduce your alcohol intake it hurts me to say it because we talk about it all you're kind of joking around it's not like it's not like you drink a lot no I don't drink a lot but I know a lot of our viewers enjoy having some alcoholic beverages and we have been seeing more and more evidence talking about how bad alcohol is for you uh however the number in this report was not as daunting as some of the other uh health risks associated with alcohol here it's about 10 drinks per week
if you can just keep it under 10 drinks for this is which is a lot a lot more than the recommended amount sure specifically for dementia it's higher obviously dose dependent um but yeah we we've talked about we actually should do one specific video all about alcohol it would make people sad but I think it's important to know kill our Channel I think we would recognize that the safe amount is probably zero but then uh the lower amounts are are probably still within safety for certain things so for this risk factor for d this report
identified a certain number of units of alcohol and it turns out to about 10 drinks per week keeping it under that will minimize your chance of demena right okay number 10 is traumatic brain injury OB if you already have one that becomes less modifiable but it's really in the prevention so wearing helmets for physical activity avoid concussion related activities and just do your best to protect your brain our brains are very fragile inside of our thick skulls right to our high school students watching the two of you high school students who watch our Channel maybe
don't try and be captain of the football team be captain of the badminton team how about the two kids I saw going like 30 km an hour on E Scooters with helmets I'm like how is is that even legal you have to wear a helmet right uh I'm not sure what the E scooter rule is but I would imagine if wear one I think yeah up um so protect your brain yeah that's by protecting your head yes this one is a tricky one for some parts of the world pollution air pollution has been identified as
a risk factor for dementia so you know how modifiable is that move if you live in an area try and spend as much time away from pollution as possible which you recognize it's not always a practical solution or on the days when they warn that the air quality is very very poor stay inside unfortunately um but I kind of joking when I said move yeah but I mean obviously you can people in the country are getting this probably a lot less frequently than City City Slickers city Folk City Folk okay number 12 is social isolation
and this is a a critical one lots of Studies have shown that in order to successfully age as well as prevent dementia you need to stay connected whether that's with your family with your friends with a purpose of some sort volunteerism a job we need to stay connected and not be socially isolated and our phones and the internet have really exacerbated this and the pandemic highlighted it get yourself connected get connected leave a comment comment is kind of socially engaging part of our community that probably doesn't count unfortunately as far as not being socially isolated
because people will use that say I got lots of friends I got like 00 friends on Facebook or something it's a start it's a start the next modifiable risk factor is vision loss okay how's this modifiable well wear glasses go see your eye doctor do what you have to do to keep your vision up and I think the vision loss and the hearing loss they're kind of tied into the social Isolation part of things right sure I think it also could decrease education right you're going to learn less you're going to read less you're read
yeah get your eyes checked make sure your vision's good for a variety of reasons so you don't trip off the curb break a hip we see that all the time but in terms of dementia Vision poor vision is a risk factor okay the last of the 14 monop risk factors going to irritate a lot of people you're irritating me with this one okay so elevated LDL or low density Lev protein or high cholesterol essentially we know that a lot of people don't believe that this is the real thing well unfortunately science has proven that it
is a very real thing yes cholesterol is necessary science damn you yes our bodies make it but excess levels are dangerous and they're part of what leads to plaque in our vessels particularly the vessels in our necks that feed our brains and can lead to dementia this was one of the later ads to this report yeah high cholesterol so however you want to do it try and get your cholesterol lowered now you know that's it 14 and it's it's a lot it's obviously stuff that's all part of a lot of it's part of living a
healthy lifestyle so making better food choices being active like we talk about reduce your stress get a good night sleep stay connected be socially involved that's it that's the report now you know leave a comment if you um like or don't like any of these and if you like this Channel please like And subscribe to our Channel yeah please subscribe if you're not already and remember you are in charge of your own health and it turns out you're kind of in charge of whether or not you're going to get dementia to a certain degree for
sure we'll see you next time
