Alzheimer's Prevention: The Latest Recommendations

  From the recent report of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine come general recommendations.
  Cognitive Training: there is currently no evidence to support a conclusion that cognitive training can prevent or delay mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer's.
  Hypertension: manage blood pressure in those with hypertension (particularly in mid-life i.e.. 35-65) to prevent, delay or slow the progression of Alzheimer's.
  Physical activity: studies fail to demonstrate increasing physical activity prevents, delays or slows mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer's. However, the report noted the other health benefits of increased physical activity such as lowering the risk of hypertension, stroke and obesity as well as symptoms of depression.
  Contrastly,to improve your life overall: consider the FINGER study out of Finland which found that targeting diet, exercise, vascular risk factors and brain training slowed cognitive decline in older adults.
Downloadable report: nationalacademies.org/Dementia

Vascular Risk Factors : Narrowing Arteries in the Head = Alzheimer's Risk Increase

  Researchers from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Neurocognitive study demonstrated that hardening of the arteries in the head is associated with mild cognitive impairment and dementia.
  In MCI and dementia patients with posterior (back of the brain) cerebral watery plaque had 44% higher prevalence of MCI than without it. Dementia risk was increased threefold in those with anterior cerebral (front of the brain) artery plaque and twofold in those with narrowing > 70% or involvement of > vascular territories.
  Again, as per my last review, decreasing vascular risk factors (obesity, diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol) decreases hardening if arteries inside the head and decreases cognitive impairment.
Neurology 2017 Apr 18;88:1156

Treat Hypertension Mid-life to Preserve Late-life Brain Function

  According to a review of the literature by a panel of experts, treatment of hypertension in mid-life preserves late-life cognitive function.
  Hypertension disrupts the function and structure of cerebral blood vessels which leads to ischemic damage (as a result of decreased blood flow to brain cell's) of white matter regions critical for cognitive function and may promote Alzheimer pathology.
Hypertension Oct 10 2016
  As previously reported, treatment of elevated blood pressure in the oldest of the old should be more conservative than treatment of younger patients.