New Research in Decreasing Your Risk Memory Loss

Looking to decrease your risk of memory problems in late life? If you’re in your 50’s and 60’s, new research shows there is still a lot of time to make an impact on your overall risk of memory problems in later life. The most beneficial steps, according to a new paper in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, include increasing physical activity, controlling high blood pressure and working on increasing HDL, commonly referred to as “good cholesterol.”

How to do that? Let’s break it down:

Increase Physical Activity:

The Centers for Disease Control recommend 150 minutes of moderate exercise ( brisk walking for example) per week, or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise ( jogging, dancing) per week. The minutes don’t have to be in large blocks to get the benefit- even a 10 or 15 minute walk or jog twice a day can make a significant difference.

Controlling Your Blood Pressure:

Controlling weight, limiting excessive salt intake, and eating a variety of fruits and veggies as part of your everyday diet, are all ways to keep from developing high blood pressure. And in those who already have high blood pressure, taking medications regularly as prescribed by your doctor can make a big difference in keeping your brain happy and healthy.

Increasing HDL:

The best way to increase HDL is to increase activity again, just like we discussed above. But diet plays a role here too- especially removing trans fats, found in margarines, shortenings, and many baked and processed foods- entirely from your diet. That means not just looking at the nutrition label on the package, but checking the ingredients as well. Nutrition labels will often list the level of trans fat in a food as zero, if each serving has less than 0.5g of trans fat in it. But the recommendation is to avoid ANY trans fats, meaning that any food with hydrogenated fats in its ingredients list should be avoided completely.

Small steps that can lead to a big payoff in the long run when it comes to keeping your mind healthy and strong!