Did you know that many of the same risk factors that increase your risk of a heart attack also increase your risk of Alzheimer’s disease?

It turns out the same factors affect a number of different diseases. Along with heart disease and Alzheimer’s these risk factors may also increase the risk for macular degeneration and end stage kidney disease.

Traditional risk factors for heart disease include smoking, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, obesity and diabetes. With each problem you have your risk is multiplied, especially if one of the problems is diabetes.

At first it doesn’t make sense that the risk factors for getting such different diseases would be so similar. This likely has something to do with the integrity of cells and blood vessels.

Things like oxidation and inflammation that damage cells are involved in the degenerative diseases of Western society on many levels.

And as Western dietary patterns, stress and sedentary lifestyles spread around the world, diseases like diabetes, which share risk factors for many of the same conditions as heart disease, are increasing as well.

The big question is what to do about it.

The good news is that many of the same diet, movement, and lifestyle choices that help reduce heart disease also lower your risk of cancer, Alzheimer’s and macular degeneration.

One diet I like a lot and try to follow myself is called the MIND diet. People who follow this diet delay the onset of Alzheimer’s by several years.