Changes in your lifestyle could help reduce the risk of developing Alzheimers

Changes in your lifestyle could help reduce the risk of developing Alzheimers.

Half of all Alzheimers disease cases could possibly be prevented by lifestyle changes such as exercise , eating healthily and not smoking. They say hundreds of thousands of patients could potentially avoid the hard hitting illness simply by changing their bad habits. Around 820,000 people in the UK suffer from Dementia, of which half have Alzheimers, and this is expected to rise to 1 million within the next 10 years. All factors thought to contribute to the disease is lack of exercise , smoking and obesity. With an inactive lifestyle being the most important possible cause, and obesity in middle-age, high blood pressure and diabetes all increasing the risk of getting the disease. The Alzheimers Society has predicted that by 2021 there will be more than 1 million British people living with dementia and this is expected to rise to 1.7million by 2050. The numbers are expected to soar as more people live until their 80s and 90s, when they are at highest risk. Therefore given this research the disease may be partly caused by unhealthy diets, smoking, high blood pressure and high cholesterol as they cause damage to blood vessels in the brain, leading to death of brain cells. So exercise , eating well and not smoking is the advice for looking after yourself in later life.