Defy Dementia Episode 27: Jay & Allison’s Excellent Brain Health Adventure
Lifestyle risk factors, like poor sleep, social isolation, and a lack of exercise may have a significant impact on dementia risk. The best evidence tells us that if we make healthy changes to key lifestyle risk factors, we could reduce dementia cases worldwide by at least 45 per cent. On this episode, Defy Dementia hosts Jay Ingram and Dr. Allison Sekuler report back on their own brain-healthy resolutions – changes they tried in our own lives – and their learnings, trials, and tribulations. Plus, they share cutting-edge brain health news, some from the recent Alzheimer's Association International Conference 2025, on topics ranging from new drug trials and blood tests for detection, to a major lifestyle study, to the role of lithium in Alzheimer’s disease, to the potential impact of wildfire smoke exposure on dementia risk, to the shingles vaccine, and more. Tune in at defydementia.org, or anywhere you get your podcasts.
Key Messages:
- Change can be hard. It may not be easy to change your lifestyle to boost brain health.
- According to one scientific study, it can take anywhere from 18 to 254 days to adopt a new habit.
- Even if change is hard, every step you take is a step in the right direction.
Key actions
- When you set goals or resolutions, make them simple and realistic.
- Try to regularly schedule brain-healthy activities, like exercise. A plan can help you follow-through.
- It's really helpful to have reinforcement and support from family and friends, but it should not feel like people are forcing you. The desire to change should come from you.
Additional Resources:
Learn more about our guests
Jay Ingram has more than 40 years of experience as an author, broadcaster, and science communicator, including work on the Daily Planet, CBC Radio’s Quirks and Quarks, and the Toronto Star. He has written 20 books, and is the recipient of the Royal Canadian Institute’s Sandford Fleming Medal, the Royal Society of Canada’s McNeil Medal for the Public Awareness of Science, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada’s Michael Smith Award for Science Promotion, a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, and was named to The Order of Canada. He is also a recipient of the American Medical Writers Association’s Walter C. Alvarez award for medical writing.
Dr. Allison Sekuler is the President and Chief Scientist of the Baycrest Academy for Research and Education and President and Chief Scientist of the Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation (CABHI), powered by Baycrest. Her research uses behavioural and neuroimaging approaches to understand how the brain processes visual information, with specific interests in face perception, motion processing, perceptual learning, neural plasticity, aging, and neurotechnology. Her research group was the first to show conclusively that older brains “rewire” themselves to compensate for functional changes, and her clinical and translational research aims to develop methods to prevent, detect, and treat age-related sensory and cognitive decline. A recognized advocate for women in science, she has received numerous awards, including twice being named one of WXN’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada.