Researchers from the University of Exeter Medical School in England have found out that a healthy lifestyle can reduce the risks of developing Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. They studied nearly 200,000 people aged 60 and older with no manifestations or symptoms of dementia at the start. Their genetic risk was categorized by high, intermediate, and low based on different mutations that affect dementia. Moreover, the participants were classified by lifestyle factors. After 8 years of follow up period, the result shows that 1.8 percent of those with high genetic risk and poor health habits had developed dementia. On the other hand, 0.6 percent of those with low genetic risk and a healthy lifestyle had not developed dementia.

Alzheimer’s disease is one of the memory disorders (dementia) which deteriorates a person mentally in the middle or old age. An individual who has genetically related brain diseases with a substandard healthy lifestyle is three times prospected to generate dementia. John Haaga from the US National Institute on Aging stated that people can escape from getting such disease by having a healthy lifestyle. Healthy habits such as proper diet, ample exercise, less alcohol, and cigarette intake are habits that counteract dementia in spite of genetic threats an individual may have.