The way you live your life can actually change your genetic makeup. Rather than having a set genetic blueprint, our genes can switched on or off at different stages of our life. The field of epigenetics is showing that although our genes themselves are fixed, genetic expression is not. It is malleable and and heavily influenced by our environment and lifestyle choices we make.

It is this expression, the switching off and on of genes, that gets ‘read’ by cells in the body. This...

Your brain starts to shrink as early as your 30s. Even if you seem perfectly healthy, you may be losing as much as 0.4% of your brain or about several million brain cells every year. The rate at which your brain gets smaller increases with age and is a major factor in early mental decline.

Brain shrinkage doesn’t happen to all areas of the brain at once. Some areas shrink more and faster than others, and brain shrinkage is likely to get more severe as you get older.

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We’ve long known that swimming is an excellent cardiovascular exercise that strengthens your heart and circulatory system. But it also really benefits your brain and mental health. It helps the brain to release mood-boosting brain chemicals. repair damage to brain cells and grow brain cells.

Your brain is where your thoughts and emotions live, and a healthy brain contributes greatly to good mental health. Swimming can help lower anxiety and depression. It provides extra benefits for...

Why are women twice as likely as men to develop Alzheimer’s disease? I discuss some important differences in the way women's brains age and how this increases their risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. It’s not that a female brain is fundamentally different to a male brain. But there are some really important differences in the way a female brain responds to hormonal changes at different stages of life that drives brain ageing in women, significantly increasing their...

 Sleep offers new hope for both predicting and preventing Alzheimer’s disease. Sleep quality deteriorates as we get older. And this is linked to a decline in memory. But in people living with Alzheimer’s disease, the disruption of sleep is far worse, and sleep disturbances start many years before the onset of Alzheimer’s symptoms. This could mean that sleep problems are actually an early warning sign of this disease.

Recent research has gone a step further and shown...

Do you forget why you went upstairs? Fail to put a name to a familiar face? We’ve all done it. And, as we get older, we often worry that these small memory mistakes will lead to dementia.  Today I share why dementia is NOT an inevitable part of ageing and how to change your lifestyle to prevent the symptoms of dementia from appearing/

Do you feel your memory and thinking are not as good as they used to be? Or that your brain is slowing down as you get older? I share how exercise can reduce both your brain age and risk of developing dementia. Ageing shrinks the brain, affecting memory and thinking, even in healthy older adults. But slowing down this process could be as simple as regularly going for a run or doing an aerobics class. Watch this video to learn how to use exercise to slow down the mental decline caused by...