It’s no secret that an array of lifestyle factors- factors largely within your control- seem to play an important part in whether you are at risk for developing dementia. For a while, we’ve presented you with evidence from the Lancet Commission that links certain lifestyle and health factors, including diet, exercise, sleep, hearing loss, etc, with increased odds that you may at some point be diagnosed with dementia. In recent weeks, even more evidence has surfaced supporting these factors, along with strategies you can employ to better protect yourself.

First, experts from the McCance Center for Brain Health at Mass General Hospital have developed a tool they call the “Brain Care Score” to test and document how you are doing over a range of physical, lifestyle, and social-emotional factors. While you will need information from your doctor to complete this 21-point “scorecard” (for example, for blood sugar and blood pressure measurements) the card takes only a few minutes to fill out and should give you an accurate and measured way to assess how well you are taking care of your brain and what you can do to lower your risk of stroke or dementia and improve your overall brain health. As one of their experts made clear, “Good brain care is a daily commitment.” The goal is to motivate you with concrete steps to improve your health and lifestyle to lower your dementia risk. A new study published in Neurology reports that the higher your score on this Brain Care Scorecard, the lower your risk for dementia (and other brain diseases), even if you are at increased genetic risk for brain disease. For more on this research and scorecard, sharpen your #2 pencil and click here.

Additional research just published in The British Journal of Sports Medicine further substantiates the connection between lifestyle- specifically exercise and cardiorespiratory fitness- and dementia risk. According to this new research, the higher your cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) the lower your risk for dementia in the long term. This research followed over 60,000 participants (ages 39-70) for 12 years and had each spend 6 minutes on a stationary bike to measure their CRF. None of the participants began the study with a dementia diagnosis. Over the course of the study, 553 participants developed dementia. However, according to the research, those who had high CRF had a 40% lower risk of developing any type of dementia compared with those who had a lower fitness level. Even those who had a genetic predisposition for dementia had a lower risk if they had high levels of CRF. We already know that certain lifestyle factors, such as a poor diet or sedentary lifestyle, put you at higher risk for developing dementia. With this new study, researchers hope that more people can be motivated and feel empowered to proactively lessen their dementia risk by engaging in more- and more demanding- cardiorespiratory exercises, such as brisk walking, biking, swimming, or dancing. So put on your dancing shoes and read more here. And for one physician’s personal approach to adjusting lifestyle behaviors after receiving a dementia diagnosis, look here.

The Rand Corporation also recently published its own report on the 11 strongest risk factors that may lead to a dementia diagnosis. The identification of these “predictors” of dementia and cognitive impairment could lead to an earlier diagnosis at a point in time when interventions or medications could slow the progression of the disease. Among the factors they identify? Some are commonly known physical health and lifestyle factors such as having diabetes or not engaging in exercise. Other predictors have been less discussed in the medical literature, including being born in the South in the United States, not having private health insurance at age 60 or never having worked, or having worked only for a few years. Want to see how your profile measures up? Take a look at a description of the report here.

Finally, it’s important to note that there are contrarians in response to this research about risk factors for a dementia diagnosis. One specific contrary view was just published in Science Norway, describing the research that currently exists in this realm as merely “observational” without any actual proof of cause and effect. One quoted professor, Anders Martin Fjell from the University of Oslo, is convinced that the risks for dementia happen early in life (such as low birth weight) so the circumstances of your early life are much more critical to your dementia risk than anything you later do as a grown adult. He wants to make sure that older adults don’t feel guilty that their lifestyle caused their dementia diagnosis. An intriguing hypothesis and certainly one worth considering. Find out more here.