Meet Patrick Holford, Founder Of Food For The Brain Foundation

Meet Patrick Holford, Founder Of Food For The Brain Foundation. Hello everyone, I hope you are well. In today’s post, I would like you to meet Patrick Holford, Founder of Food for the Brain Foundation. A foundation involved testing cognitive function, identifying risk and helping people reduce risk. Patrick is also the Director of the Alzheimer’s preventable campaign and has recently launched Cognition – A New Alzheimer’s App.

Meet Patrick Holford, Founder Of Food For The Brain Foundation

Hello Patrick, It Is A Pleasure To Interview You. Tell Me Something Important About Yourself

I’m a psychologist who became a nutritionist after testing the effects of vitamins on children’s IQ in a landmark study back in the 80s, which showed a big jump in IQ scores in children given vitamins. I started the not-for-profit Food for the Brain 17 years ago to highlight and educate about the link between nutrition and mental health.

What Inspired You To Start COGNITION?

Most of the dementia is Alzheimer’s, a preventable, not treatable, disease. It causes so much suffering for the person and their family and is a massive cost to the nation. COGNITION is an interactive ‘brain upgrade’ programme that helps people reduce risk and avoid this terrible disease.

Is It True That Alzheimer’s Is Largely Inherited?

This is not true. Less than one in a hundred cases of Alzheimer’s is caused by genes. At least half the risk is to do with things we can change – diet and lifestyle.

What Are The Lifestyle Risk Factors?

There are many but key ones are: A lack of omega-3 from fish. Low levels of B vitamins, which drives up a toxic amino acid in the blood called homocysteine (this is often to do with decreased absoprtion of B12 as you age). Too many sugary and refined foods. A lack of antioxidants and polyphenols found in fruit, vegetables, herbs, spices and whole foods. An inactive lifestyle – lack of exercise, mental stimulation, social interaction. Stress and poor sleep. These are some of the risk factors. When you do our free online Cognitive Function Test, which measures your cognitive resilience, you’ll then fill in a Dementia Risk Index questionnaire which works out your risk and the key changes that would make the biggest difference to your risk.

How Does COGNITION Work To Help You Prevent Alzheimer’s?

After completing the test and questionnaire, you can sign up for COGNITION and, day by day, week by week, month by month, this interactive programme shows you how to reduce your risk. You pick the risk factor you want to change, and COGNITION shows you how.

Is There Support Available To Help You Stick To Recommended Life Changes?

When you join COGNITION, you’re invited to join our ‘Friends Facebook group’ to ask questions and learn from the community of people engaged in reducing their future risk for dementia and supporting healthy cognition.

What Are You Ultimately Hoping To Achieve From The Launch Of COGNITION?

While it is highly likely that making the recommended changes would reduce a person’s risk by two-thirds, a realistic target, if we can get enough people engaged, would be to cut the number of people developing dementia each year by a third.

I would like to say a huge thank you to Patrick Holford for taking part in the interview with me.

To find out more about Food for the Brain. Please visit:

Website: Foodforthebrain.org

Instagram: www.instagram.com/foodforthebrainfoundation

Facebook – www.facebook.com/foodforthebrain.org

I hope you enjoyed that.

Talk soon.