Want to stay dementia-free longer? These 3 simple lifestyle changes could help protect your brain

Simple lifestyle choices such as keeping blood pressure under control, avoiding smoking and managing diabetes may help people stay free from dementia for longer, according to two recent studies.

A US study published in Neurology Open Access followed 12,409 adults, with an average age of 56, for about 26 years. During the study, 3,008 participants developed dementia.

Researchers found that people with normal blood pressure, no diabetes and who did not smoke lived nearly 13 years longer without dementia than those with all three risk factors. On average, they remained dementia-free for 30.1 years, compared with 17.5 years for those with all three risk factors.

Women generally lived longer without dementia than men, regardless of how many of these risk factors they had.

“People with all three risk factors were more likely to develop dementia or die at earlier ages from other causes, leading to shorter overall survival and fewer years with their thinking and memory abilities intact,” the study author said.

Another study from Sweden, published in The Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer's Disease, followed nearly 500 healthy adults for four years. It found that smoking, high blood pressure, heart disease and high cholesterol were linked to damage in the brain's small blood vessels and white matter, changes that can lead to vascular dementia. Diabetes was also linked to a greater buildup of amyloid beta, a protein associated with Alzheimer's disease.

While factors such as age, sex and genetics cannot be changed, experts say managing blood pressure, diabetes and smoking in midlife, along with a healthy diet and staying physically active, may help protect brain health later in life.