Dr. Majid Fotuhi

The other thing is that the diagnosis of dementia and Alzheimer's disease is not easy.

It's not as black and white as diagnosing HIV or cancer because multiple things can happen in the brain little by little to cause problems.

The good news is this, the incidence of Alzheimer's disease in many Western European countries is declining.

I will talk to you soon about the five pillars of brain health and how lifestyle interventions can reduce the brain atrophy that causes those symptoms.

And in places like Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the incidence, the number of new Alzheimer's cases has dropped by 20% in the past 25 years.

Even in the United States, in a Framingham study where participants in small town of Framingham have been monitors for decades.

researchers found that the incidence of Alzheimer's disease, how many new cases of Alzheimer's disease is being diagnosed every year has gone down by 13%.

My attitude, my approach to these numbers is don't look at doom and gloom and think that you're one of them.

Look at how people have been able to have successful aging and minimize their risk and do well to ward off and defy Alzheimer's disease.

This is where I talk about my book, and this is what's empowering to people.

Also, you have to realize that just because something has been happening for a long time, it doesn't mean it will continue to happen the same way.

In 1950s, 1960s,

If you went to a bar or a restaurant or even in the airplane, people used to smoke.

And so you would ask for how common is it

for people to be smoking, you can get 50, 60% of population that were smokers.

But it didn't mean that it was normal and that it will always be the case in the future.

We now know that in the United States, I don't know the exact numbers, see anyone smoke in restaurants or even bars or definitely not in the airplanes.

And I like your listeners to appreciate just because something is common, it's like sedentary life is common.

Spending too much time on your social media is common, but that's not normal.

And that's not necessarily the way it will be for you.