The Brain Mistake That Increases Your Risk of Memory Loss After 50

What if the single biggest thing raising

your risk of memory loss later on in

life wasn't your genes? It wasn't just

bad luck. It wasn't something written

into you at birth, but a mistake that

you're making right now today without

even realizing it? Because that is

roughly where the science has landed on

this particular point. The biggest

reviews of the evidence suggest that up

to around 45% of dementia, so nearly

half of cases could be prevented or

delayed by things that we have real

control over.

We tend to picture dementia and memory

loss. I know they're not the same thing,

but we tend to picture these things as,

you know, the way we picture cancer is

just bad luck that either finds you or

it doesn't. You know, it's just one of

those things that happens when you get

older. But, the thing is around four in

10 cancers in adults are preventable as

well, and dementia sits in exactly that

same bracket. So, what I'm going to do

in this video is walk you through three

mistakes that people commonly make in

their 50s and 60s that very slowly stack

the odds against your brain. I'm going

to explain what each one does to your

brain, and then right at the end, I'm

going to give you the number one

mistake, the one that surprises almost

everybody that I tell it to, and the one

that I would fix first if it was me or

my own family. My name's Dr. Alex. I'm

here to help you cut through all of this

noise and help you live a longer and

healthier life along the way. Now, I've

said this a few times in recent videos,

but remember that modern life is built

to make you sick very slowly, and modern

medicine is built to meet you there once

it has already happened, like a heart

attack. Ill, but not dead. That is the

business model of modern life. Nobody in

modern medicine or in the pharmaceutical

industry or anything like that, nobody

gets paid for preventing anything.

Nobody gets paid if you prevent dementia

in yourself, but people do get paid when

they start giving you tablets and other

therapies and other things that you've

got to pay for once that dementia has

already been diagnosed. And that is why

I started this channel in the first

place to help you prevent the diseases

that I see all the time in the first

place. And here's the thing that nobody

tells you about dementia. Dementia

doesn't start in your 70s, it starts

literally, and I mean literally, decades

earlier, often in your 40s and 50s,

laying down damage very silently in your

brain long before a single symptom

actually appears.

Now, to see why you need to know a

little bit about proteins. So, proteins

are the tiny building blocks that do

almost every job inside your cells. And

to work properly, they've got to fold up

into very neat, precise shapes, if that

makes sense.

In Alzheimer's, which is the most common

form of dementia, certain proteins fold

the wrong way and then, in turn, become

a bit sticky. And instead of being

cleared away, like all proteins will be

at some point, they clump together. They

form plaques between your brain cells

and sort of create tangles inside of

them.

Those clumps, they sort of clog up the

connections that your brain cells use to

talk to each other. And over time, the

cells become starved and they die. This

is what builds up very early on decades

before a diagnosis actually appears. And

the thing is when we actually scan the

brains of healthy volunteers or when

pathologists actually examine the brain

after death, they find these sticky

proteins literally accumulating 10, 15,

even 20 years before that person ever

had a problem with their memory. So, by

the time the symptoms start to show,

that process has been well underway for

the best part of two decades.

And I know that I talk about that all

the time. I talk about how things start

decades earlier than you ever think they

do, but it's really important and it's

really alarming.

Because the flip side is where the good

news is. It means that the years where

you can do the most about your risk,

where you can do all of this good work,

are the very years when you feel

completely fine and you're most able to

make these changes.

That window is wide open right now while

nothing feels wrong. And that head start

is worth far more than any treatment we

can offer once the damage is done. But

remember, even if you're already

suffering from a bit of memory loss, it

is never ever too late to start making

some positive changes and slowing down

that decline and completely changing

your trajectory. So, mistake number one

is brushing off and not paying attention

to a slowly rising blood sugar over

time.

If your doctor has ever told you that

your blood sugar is a little bit high,

but nothing to worry about, and you just

carried on exactly as you were before

with just, you know, the same lifestyle

habits as you were before, then

this is the first mistake to know about.

Letting your blood sugar drift up year

after year and treating it as a normal

part of getting older

is

honestly one of the most common things I

see. And your brain really doesn't like

that.

Think about how many people you know

with diabetes or pre-diabetes now. It

just feels normal, doesn't it? Almost

sort of background noise. Oh, everybody

gets diabetes these days.

But this is a serious disease and it was

rare in the decades before

ultra-processed food and machines that

now do everything for us.

Back then, so back in the age of your

great-grandparents or whatever, we ate

real whole foods and we moved all day

every day.

And that is exactly what protects

against a high blood sugar. Even today

in parts of the world where people are

active from morning until night and

aren't living on packaged food, you

barely see pre-diabetes or type 2

diabetes in these parts of the world at

all.

And here's what high blood sugar does to

your brain. So, when it runs high for

very long periods, like years, the

excess sugar sticks to the proteins all

over your body and damages them. And it

is especially hard on the tiny, delicate

blood vessels that feed your brain,

starving small regions of the oxygen and

the nutrients that they need. On top of

that, the insulin resistance behind high

blood sugar seems to stop your brain

cells taking up and using energy

properly.

That link is strong enough that now some

doctors actually call Alzheimer's type 3

diabetes to capture how tightly blood

sugar and brain health are tied

together.

This is where a very simple annual blood

test earns its place. It's called HbA1c.

Most of you will know that, and it

measures your average blood sugar over

the past two or three months by looking

at how much sugar sticks to the protein

in your red blood cells. So, one good

day or one bad day can't fool it. It is

an average over three months. And the

reason it matters so much is that

insulin resistance builds for years,

often starting when you're much younger,

long before you feel a single thing.

And honestly, I would argue that anybody

over the age of 30 should spend a bit of

money each year tracking this particular

number, and also a fasting insulin if

you can get that as well, because it's

cheap, it is easy, and it's one of the

earliest warning lights that you will

ever ever get. And the fix isn't really

exotic or expensive. It's just the stuff

that I talk about all the time. It is

real food instead of refined

carbohydrates. It is walking after your

meals, or preferably being active all

day and sitting very little, so your

muscles soak up the sugar, and also a

bit of strength training as well to

build the tissue that actually stores

that sugar. Every one of those habits

moves you closer to the way that your

ancestors used to live all day every

day. And together, they are stronger

than any pill that we've got for

diabetes. You know, those things that I

talked about, so moving regularly,

strength work, and cutting out

ultra-processed foods is more powerful

than Metformin, which is the most common

drug that we prescribe for diabetes. The

next mistake is so gentle and so

reasonable that good and sensible people

fall into this without ever noticing.

So, as we move through our 50s and into

our 60s, we slowly stop doing the things

that stretch us. Maybe that's the hobby

that used to challenge us and frustrate

us. That hobby gets pushed to one side

because we're busy

or we just don't feel like it these

days. Or maybe the circle of friends

that we used to see every week gets

smaller and smaller as people move away

or drift out of touch and we don't quite

replace those friends. And bit by bit

the physical stuff gets easier as well.

So, we take the car instead of walking

and we use the lift or the elevator

instead of taking the stairs. And you

know, look, obviously I understand why

this happens because life is tiring and

comfort is right there for the taking.

And after decades of hard work, you

know, it feels like something that

you've earned. Why should I always be

walking up the stairs at the age of 60

when I've got the elevator instead? I

get it. But the thing is, your muscles

and also your brain works on a strict

use it or lose it basis. Think of the

connections between your brain cells

like paths worn through a field, like a

big, you know, wheat field where people

are walking all the time and there is a

distinct path where people walk. Every

time you learn something that's really

difficult or you have a proper back and

forth, you know, in a conversation that

makes you think or you push your body

past what feels easy, you walk those

paths and keep them really clear. And

you even wear in new paths as well.

But if you stop using those paths, you

know, like any path across a field, then

they will just grow over. Those paths

will disappear. That is how you build

what's called cognitive reserve, which

is a kind of buffer, and it's sort of

why two people with the same physical

changes in the brain can have completely

different symptoms because the one with

more reserve can absorb more damage

before anything shows. A very soft and

comfortable and isolated life strips

away the exact stimulation the aging

brain needs the most. The people who

stay sharp into old age are, over and

over, the ones still doing the things

that challenge them. So, that might be

joining a dance class or a circuit

training class or a Pilates class or

something like that, or picking up a new

language or doing puzzles or reading

every day, learning an instrument. It is

never too late to learn how to play

something. I play the drums and guitar,

and I've not done that for a good few

years, but I fully, fully intend on

picking those back up later on in life.

Or, it could just simply be staying in

the thick of other people's company and

remaining really socially active.

Anything that makes your brain work a

bit harder

than it actually wants to absolutely

counts here. And then finally, we've got

the number one mistake that so many

people make. If I could get everybody

over the age of 50 to do one single

thing for their brain, it would be this.

And it's one that almost nobody guesses.

The biggest single modifiable risk

factor for dementia, according to the

major Lancet Commission that literally

pulled together the best evidence that

we have, is untreated hearing loss in

midlife. This one really does hit close

to home for me because both my dad and

my father-in-law have pretty bad

hearing. My dad spent Well, he still is

a paramedic. He spent his whole working

life as a paramedic with the sirens

going on full blast. And then my

father-in-law, Paul, he's a builder and

used to be a farmer as well,

who has used power tools for decades

and he has never worn ear defenders, no

protection for his ears at all, no

matter how many times people have told

him to put them on. So, I've watched up

close what fading hearing does to

somebody. Now, I'm not saying that

they've got dementia. Obviously, I'm not

saying that, but it's very clear in

conversations,

you know, that they can't hear as well

as other people their age.

And here's how it damages the brain. And

there are two parts to it. So, the first

one is that when your hearing starts to

go, and it usually fades so gradually

that you don't actually even notice it,

your brain has to work far harder to

make sense of every muffled half-heard

word.

That constant effort drains resources

away from memory and thinking,

and it literally runs all day, every

day, for years.

The second one, and this is the bigger

one,

people whose hearing is fading slowly

pull away from the world around them.

Conversations become tiring and a bit

embarrassing sometimes, so they stop

going to the noisy family dinner. They

stop phoning friends. They stop joining

in conversation, and they retreat into a

smaller, quieter life.

That withdrawal, that lack of

stimulation and connection is exactly

the soil in which cognitive decline

takes root. This Lancet Commission, and

I'll put a link in the description below

for you, it found that hearing loss

accounts for a bigger slice of

preventable dementia than almost any

other single factor that we know of. So,

those are the three mistakes, and it'll

be really interesting to hear in the

comments how many of these resonate with

you personally.

But, let me just be really clear. These

modifiable factors added together, you

know, are thought to account for up to

around 45, maybe half, you know, 50% of

dementia cases, which is a huge and

hopeful share. These are the things that

we can change. But, it obviously also

means that the rest still comes down to

age and genetics, and things that we

cannot control.

So, nobody watching should feel guilt or

blame.

If you have memory loss or dementia, and

you have, you know, accounted for all of

these things, you've really led a great

life, then it could just be one of those

things that was going to happen to you

anyway. Like I said, it only accounts

for around up to half of cases. The

whole point of this channel and

everything I talk about is trying to

increase your odds, trying to stack the

deck in your favor by doing the things

that we can control. Remember, treating

your hearing keeps you in the

conversation. It keeps you engaged. It

keeps you connected to other people, and

connection is one of the strongest

protectors of the brain that we actually

have. Treating your hearing which is

gradually fading just as a bit of vanity

or something to put up with while you

turn the telly up louder and louder

every year, that is the real mistake.

Getting it checked is really, really

easy. Most high streets have a hearing

center or an opticians that will also

check your hearing as well, or a

pharmacy that also checks your hearing.

Yeah, loads of places do it. It is

quick. It's often free, or at least

very, very cheap, and it's one of the

best investments in your health that you

can make.

So, if you take just one thing from this

video today, it might be as simple as

booking a hearing test, especially if

you've caught yourself turning up the

volume or asking people to repeat

themselves more than you used to.

And I would say if you're over the age

of 50, even if you think your hearing is

okay, just book a hearing test anyway

because it might surprise you.

And they may be able to treat something

that you didn't know you had or give you

some advice or at least, you know, that

could be the start of an annual hearing

test so they've got a baseline to work

from. And please remember none of these

three is the whole story on its own. It

is all of them together along with your

sleep, your movement, your diet, your

blood pressure, and staying connected to

the people around you compounded over

years and decades.

That is honestly what really tilts the

odds in your favor.

You don't have to fix everything at once

and honestly you shouldn't really try

to. Pick the one that speaks to you the

most and take a single small step

towards that mistake this week. So, if

that's booking a hearing test or going

for a walk after dinner to try and lower

your blood sugar spike or ringing an old

friend, then that is a real start and

the rest can follow on in time. Now, if

you've got questions about any of this,

then please leave them in the comments

below and I will honestly try to reply

to as many as I can, but I do read all

of them and they shape what I cover in

the next few weeks of videos.

And if you've got a parent or a partner

who's been struggling to hear or they're

saying pardon all the time or what did

you say, then just share this video with

them or tell them what you've learned

from this video

and hopefully we can help as many people

as possible. Thank you so much for

watching and I'll see you next time.