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Brain health

Genetics

Some special genes can predispose you or increase resistance to diseases, including cognitive ones like alzheimers. As explained in the human society survey, genes play a limited role in general in the heritability of intellect.

Blood supply to the brain

Fatty build up in blood vessels is linked with brain impairment, and deadly strokes and heart attacks. The brain relies on a good blood supply to keep its functions and processes in top order.

Blood vessel health is explained elsewhere.

Hydration

Hierarchical regression models demonstrated that lower hydration status was related to slowed psychomotor processing speed and poorer attention/memoryperformance, after controlling for demographic variables and blood pressure.

Physical damage

About an American football player: He committed suicide November 2006 at the age of 44. The results of his brain autopsy have just been announced, and the pathologist from the University of Pittsburgh concluded that his brain cells had the appearance of an 85-year-old man with Alzheimer’s disease.

They found brain damage in virtually every Everest climber but also in many climbers of lesser peaks who returned unaware that they had injured their brain.

On shockwave injuries: If the skull doesn’t break, sometimes this can lead to the energy of the impact being more fully absorbed by the brain, often leading to shearing and tearing of the white matter pathways as the brain ‘bounces around’ inside.