Physician-backed insights to optimize your health and reduce long-term risks.
If your systolic runs 140 or higher, getting it under 130 now has randomized evidence for your brain, not only your heart. Intensive blood pressure control lowered new dementia cases by about 15% over seven years, and did it with fewer serious adverse events in the treated group than in usual care. That closes a gap the field has been carrying since SPRINT MIND.
If you're 50 or older and haven't finished your Shingrix doses, the newest evidence gives you a second reason to schedule them. A 2026 study of more than half a million older adults ties the shot to fewer dementia diagnoses over four years, and it fits a pattern already seen in Wales, Australia, Canada, and several US cohorts. This isn't proof the vaccine prevents dementia, and the headline study was funded by GSK, which makes Shingrix. But the shingles protection alone already justified getting it. The cognitive signal is now hard to wave off.
Depression appears to press pause on the hippocampus's ability to make new neurons, not destroy it. A new Nature Medicine paper on brain tissue from unmedicated donors found the young progenitor cells still there, just held mid-lineage. The treatments already in the clinic, from SSRIs to esketamine to a regular running habit, look like the ones aimed at pressing play.
At least 1 in 4 former NFL players who died recently had CTE at death, and the true rate probably sits well above that. That's the finding of a new BMJ analysis covering every NFL player who died from 2008 to 2021. It corrects the famous 99% number for the fact that families donate brains when they suspect disease, and it lands on the same lever a decade of neuropathology has kept pointing to: years of tackle football, not the concussions someone remembers, drive who gets the disease. If you or someone you love plays, that's where the decision lives.
Hormone therapy hasn't been shown to prevent Alzheimer's. It earns its place for menopausal symptoms and bone protection, and the newer estrogen-and-brain studies matter on their own terms: some women using hormones show lower tau markers and larger brain regions tied to Alzheimer's risk. But no trial that tracks actual diagnoses has found fewer cases, and starting combined hormones at 65 or older raised dementia risk in the largest randomized dementia trial. Timing and formulation matter more than a simple yes or no.
Alcohol doesn’t just put stress on your liver. It also depletes thiamine, an essential vitamin for brain and nerve health. Even moderate drinkers may slip into deficiency over time. Supplementing with thiamine is a safe, low-cost way to protect your nervous system.
A simple blood test measuring phosphorylated tau 217 (p-tau217) is now outperforming older biomarkers like amyloid beta in detecting early-stage Alzheimer’s disease, offering hope for earlier diagnosis and intervention.
