Billions of dollars are being spent on research to find a molecule that will cure Alzheimer’s disease. Yet, as Dr. Louis Bherer explains, adopting certain lifestyle habits could significantly reduce the risk of developing symptoms, in some cases by up to half.

Dr. Bherer is a professor in the Department of Medicine at the Université de Montréal and researcher and director at the EPIC Centre, the preventive medicine and physical activity centre at the Institut de Cardiologie de Montréal (Montreal Heart Institute). His work focuses on the impact of lifestyle, physical exercise and cognitive stimulation on the brain health of older adults and patients with cardiovascular disease.

At his Montréal laboratory, Bherer and his team develop both physical and cognitive exercise programs. The results of their studies corroborate what other research has found on the importance of lifestyle in the prevention of dementia. This factor has been neglected by public health authorities, explains Dr. Bherer, who is also laboratory director at the l’Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal (Montreal University Institute of Geriatrics). We recently spoke to Dr. Bherer:

The Conversation Canada: A new Statistics Canada study indicates a substantial decline in healthy life expectancy in Canada. In 2023, it was 66.9 years, a decrease of 3.5 years from the peak of 70.4 years between 2010 and 2012. Are you surprised?

Dr. Louis Bherer: Yes and no. But what we do know is that the healthspan-lifespan gap — the gap between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy — is widening. For example, nine out of 10 people have at least one risk factor for cardiovascular........

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