each installment of our new segment called Your Brain Health Matters.

Each month, we're looking at research aimed at better understanding brain disease and the work underway here in Nevada to prevent it.

And if you think getting Alzheimer's disease is entirely out of your control, this next interview is for you.

Doctor Jeffrey Cummings, a professor with UNLV's Department of Brain Health, explains the steps you can take today to reduce your risk.

Now, the control of of the risk factors can't be stopping aging.

We can't do that.

And if we have a family history of dementia or Alzheimer's disease, we can't do anything about that.

But what we can do is reduce all of the lifestyle related risk factors for Alzheimer's disease.

And they account for almost half of the vulnerability to Alzheimer's disease.

So diabetes is a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease.

Obesity is a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease.

Hypertension and and stroke and other cardiovascular factors are risk factors for Alzheimer's disease.

Lack of exercise, low education, our risk factors for Alzheimer's disease, a poor diet with with poor fruit and vegetable intake.

Is a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease.

So programmatically and in your life, you can have lifestyle adjustments that decrease the risk of Alzheimer's disease by almost half.

So these are very powerful effects that have now been well-described to explain the impact of low education.

Why would that contribute to someone's likelihood of getting Alzheimer's?

When we think about what are the brain effects of education?

What we see in the laboratory and what we think is going on in people is that the nerve cells grow more and more connections as the educational environment is enriched.

And the first thing that happens in Alzheimer's disease is the loss of these connections.

So the more connections you have, the more likely you are to withstand the effects of the disease without developing symptoms.

So we have a very strong physical correlate of education.

When we measure the activity levels of of experiments in the laboratory, and we think those apply strongly to humans, and we have some preliminary human evidence and supporting that idea.

Access to education can be tied to your financial situation.

Yes.

What would you recommend to someone that cannot access higher education?

what we can see is that people who maintain, robust interactions and, continue to learn.

Maybe it's a new instrument or something.

It's not necessarily going back to class or having a richer education to begin with.

But continued involvement in learning, has a strong effect on reducing the risk of Alzheimer's disease.

And I think learning can occur even in the most impoverished circumstances.

But people have to know how important that is.

So we have a lot of education to do.

And I think that the public is used to hearing diet and exercise as a solution for a whole range of problems, yet it still doesn't get through to everyone because of time scheduling.

The ability to afford good quality food.

Where do you start in convincing people to try and take steps in these areas?

There's a very strong world wide program right now that I really like.

It's called the Fingers program.

So fingers is good nutrition, exercise, control of cardiovascular risk factors, social connectedness and brain fitness.

And these things together are implemented in the World Wide Finger program.

And they have been shown to improve cognition in at risk older individuals.

So people who might be likely to develop Alzheimer's disease actually improve their cognition, not just delay the onset.

They actually get better with the fingers program.

So we think this is a very powerful, intervention.

But you're exactly right.

People have to commit to it.

to interject these things into their daily life habits.

But I think we all can do better on our diet once we understand the importance.

And what what's a great diet?

Well, a great diet is a colorful diet, right?

Green leafy vegetables, yellow vegetables, red vegetables, fruits, colorful fruits.

These are all the things that are high in antioxidants.

And we know that the proteins accumulating in Alzheimer's disease produce oxidative injury.

So if we have antioxidants in the diet, we can combat the oxidative injury associated with Alzheimer's disease.

And exercise very important for cardiovascular.

And we've just said that cardiovascular, is a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease.

Socialization is so important.

Keeping your connectedness, staying with your family, having your friends doing volunteer.

These are all things that that measurably reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease.

And then mental fitness.

Games.

A new language is new music, engagement.

All of these things are also, measurably beneficial for an aging brain.

Are there any substances that you would say try to reduce your intake in order to prevent Alzheimer's?

I think there is strong evidence, that too much red meat in your diet, that too much highly processed foods, white breads, those those things that are injurious to the brain in the long run.

So there are things to be avoided, and they can be replaced by better substitutes.

What are other risk factors for Alzheimer's that we haven't talked about?

One is head injury.

So we're very worried about athletes and soldiers and their risk for Alzheimer's disease, because we can see that overall, if you look at people who've had head injury, they are more likely to get Alzheimer's disease then lack of sleep or poor sleep is a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease.

We now know that the toxic proteins of Alzheimer's disease are cleaned from the brain during sleep, and this cleaning process, if it's interrupted by insomnia and sleeplessness, does not achieve the goal of cleaning the brain of these toxic proteins.

So sleep is very important.

And then depression, has emerged as a very important risk factor for Alzheimer's disease.

It also accompanies Alzheimer's disease.

But people who have depression earlier in life are at increased risk for Alzheimer's disease.

So, one of the things that we need to discover this is on the scientific agenda is the effective treatment of depression earlier in life, reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease.

And we're not sure of that yet.

But we do know that depression, is a risk factor.

And of course, depression should be treated regardless of its impact on Alzheimer's disease.

Why is depression a risk factor?

What's happening to the brain that would impact it later on?

that's still being investigated.

But we can see, for example, with sophisticated MRI studies of the brain that depression has an adverse impact on the circuits of the brain.

And those circuits are the same ones that are affected, you know, things to change.