Op-Ed: Your Brain’s Fate Isn’t in Your Genes — It’s in Your Hands

The Slow Burn of Cognitive Decline
Dementia doesn’t strike overnight. It’s a slow erosion of brain function that begins decades before the first forgotten name or misplaced keys. It starts with tiny breakdowns: neurons losing connections, energy deficits in brain cells, and chronic inflammation.

Over time, those once-vibrant neural networks shrink and fray. By the time symptoms appear, the damage is already deep. But the good news is that this process is highly modifiable—especially if we act early.

Three Enemies of Brain Health: Sugar, Stress, and Sedentary Life
Nicola is blunt about the modern culprits that are quietly sabotaging our brain:

1. Refined sugars and ultra-processed foods: These don’t just harm your waistline—they bathe your brain in inflammation, impair insulin signaling, and starve neurons of energy. It’s no coincidence that Alzheimer’s is now increasingly referred to as “Type 3 diabetes.” Elevated insulin and blood sugar damage the brain’s ability to use glucose, its primary fuel. While current medical guidelines suggest a hemoglobin A1C below 5%, Nicola pushes for a more aggressive target: below 3%—especially for those looking to optimize brain health.
2. Sedentary behavior: A lack of movement is, as Nicola puts it, “a disease.” Resistance training twice a week can reduce your risk of mild cognitive impairment by 32%. High-intensity interval training (zone 5 cardio) actually reverses age-related heart damage—directly improving blood flow to the brain.
3. Alcohol: That nightly glass of wine? Not harmless. Even “moderate” drinkers show reduced gray matter and lesions in white matter—the brain’s communication highways.

What to Eat to Feed Your Brain
The brain is a high-performance organ—it’s only 2% of your body weight but consumes 20% of your energy. Starve it, inflame it, or block its fuel lines, and decline sets in.

Nicola advocates for a plant-forward, omnivorous diet rich in:

• Fatty fish (like salmon and mackerel) for brain-critical DHA.
• Creatine, a supplement once thought useful only for bodybuilders, now shown to enhance brain energy metabolism—and even rival antidepressants in mood support.
• Electrolytes and hydration, to keep neurons firing and the blood-brain barrier intact.

The “Inconvenient Truth” About Brain Aging
None of this is glamorous. There’s no magic pill. Preventing dementia means building habits long before symptoms emerge. But here’s the trade-off: You get to keep your memories, your independence, and your identity.

And yet, many people still shrug it off—until it’s too late. “We can’t see the human brain shrink,” Nicola notes, “so we don’t think about it.” But if we could feel the synapses breaking down, would we still choose the soda over sleep, or Netflix over movement?

Your Brain’s Future Is Being Built Today
It’s not enough to fear dementia. We must act to prevent it. That means:

• Prioritizing exercise (both strength and cardio).
• Cutting sugar and ultra-processed foods.
• Supplementing strategically (EPA/DHA, creatine).
• Protecting sleep and relationships, both of which buffer brain aging in powerful ways.

Nicola’s advice echoes what indigenous cultures knew intuitively: our bodies—and brains—thrive with movement, connection, nutrient-rich food, and rest. But unlike our ancestors, we now have MRI scans and neurochemical data to prove it.

Genes matter, yes. But lifestyle is destiny.

So the real question isn’t “Will I get dementia?”

It’s “Am I giving my brain a fighting chance?”

View the companion video here.