Keep busy, eat healthily 'to keep dementia at bay'

Want to stave off dementia? Keep yourself busy and eat healthily, says a new study. Researchers in France have found that keeping brain stimulated, avoiding depression and a healthy diet to reduce the risk of developing diabetes are fundamental in keeping dementia at bay.

In fact, with no cure for the debilitating disease, the researchers claim that the focus should be on the best ways to avoid it.

The latest study in France of 1,500 people found better education would cut new cases by about 18 per cent over the next seven years. But eliminating the main genetic risk factor would lead only to a seven per cent cut in new cases during the same period, the 'Daily Express' reported.

The researchers said: "Diabetes, and perhaps also depression, should be the principal targets of a future population-based health prevention programme." Experts have welcomed the findings. Rebecca Wood of the Alzheimer's Research Trust said: "Healthy lifestyle can lower your risk of dementia even more than if we had been allowed to select our genes ourselves."

The study has been published in the 'British Medical Journal'.