Dr. Majid Fotuhi

In fact, I plan to start a community of people who are interested to set a goal of becoming a brain super-ager.

So the five pillars are fitness, optimal sleep,

a brain healthy nutrition, mindset, and brain training.

Exercise is by far the most important factor for keeping your brain healthy and strong.

By far.

Like if you ask me, what is the one thing that I must do

as the most important thing to take care of my brain, I would say, improve your fitness.

You should be able to go up 10 flights of stairs without stopping.

You should be able to easily walk three to five miles.

You should be fit.

Now, there are ways to actually measure your fitness and then monitor it

objectively, but you can also just do it by your own measures that you're one notch better every six months, that you can do a little bit more every six months.

I must add that there are parts of the world where people are more active than they used to be.

Many high-income Western European countries have seen a drop in the incidence of Alzheimer's disease in places like Denmark, Norway, Sweden.

where people are active on a regular basis, you've seen a drop of 20% in the incidence of Alzheimer's disease in the past 20 years.

I was in Amsterdam for the Alzheimer's conference two years ago, and I love that these older,

people they clearly looked like they're in 80s were biking and their bikes had little basket in front and the grandchildren like two or three grandchildren were sitting in front of the bike and here was this older grandpa who was biking through the city and i'm not surprised that they have a lower incidence of alzheimer's disease because these people are being more active

And as a result of not only activity, but interacting with the grandchildren, many of them eat right, many of them do the things that those five pillars of brain health is a drop.

One study in Framingham showed that the incidence of Alzheimer's disease in Framingham area has also dropped by 13% in the past 20 years.

So in places where people are doing these five pillars of brain health, especially with more activity, we are seeing a drop.