Well, first of all, the risk factors for stroke, ischemic heart disease, and dementia are the same. Exactly the same. So if diseases occur together, they should be treated together. They pose a risk for each other. In other words, if you have a heart attack, you’re more likely to have a stroke or become demented. If you’re demented, you’re more likely to have a stroke. If you have a stroke, you’re more like to have heart disease or get demented...
Well, first of all, the risk factors for stroke, ischemic heart disease, and dementia are the same. Exactly the same. So if diseases occur together, they should be treated together. They pose a risk for each other. In other words, if you have a heart attack, you’re more likely to have a stroke or become demented. If you’re demented, you’re more likely to have a stroke. If you have a stroke, you’re more like to have heart disease or get demented.
So if the risk of all three, why not look at them together. And if we join forces, the people interested in the brain, on the heart, and dementia get together, we can go much further, faster. So, in the Wartenberg Lecture, which I gave to the academy a couple of years ago, that’s precisely what I’m advocating. That we should do it together, because there is economies of scale, and also, we should focus it not on scaring people saying, “Look, unless you eat healthy and exercise, et cetera, you’ll have a stroke in 20 years.” Well, that doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. It’s too far in the future.
So the emphasis has to be in brain health, meaning not only your intellect, your ability to think, but also your emotions and your social life. The pandemic has pointed out that’s very closely connected. If you’re depressed, you’re not going to perform very well, and if you are anxious, you’re not going to perform very well. And again, if your cognition, your abilities, your intellect is failing, you’re going to get depressed. And we know what solitude and isolation have done. So we have to look at brain health as being all three. And we have to foster it. The relatively simple things that can be done to have a healthy lifestyle. For example, exercise. People think exercise is going to the gym. Well, it turns out that any exercise is better than none, and you get most of the value by doing some modest thing you can work into your habits. So we need to go from easy to hard, and not have a big program that nobody follows.
