Scientist have discovered that memory loss and cognitive function start slipping earlier than once thought.

Maintaining and improving mental health should start early in life.

Living a healthy lifestyle and being active seems to be the best way to ward off mental decline.

Researchers haven’t conclusively proven that cognitive decline in middle age predicts Alzheimer’s or other dementias, but on balance the evidence suggests that small changes in midlife mental function can become magnified later in life, says Francine Grodstein, Sc.D., an epidemiologist and associate professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in Boston.
“There is a lot of evidence that [people] with cognitive decline are at highest risk of later developing dementia, so it is likely that preventing or delaying cognitive decline today will help reduce risk of dementia tomorrow,” says Grodstein, who was not involved in the research but wrote an editorial accompanying the study.