Effects of Lifestyle Factors on Cognitive Resilience: Commentary on “What This Sunny, Religious Town in California Teaches Us About Living Longer”

Adventists have a higher life expectancy than their peers, with females living 4.4 years and males 7.3 years longer on average when compared with the general California population [2]. [...]Adventists have been the focus of numerous epidemiological studies examining the relationship between healthy living and health outcomes. There is also evidence for a role of caloric restriction and intermittent fasting in preventing cognitive decline in elderly adults [23, 24]. Since studies to date on modifiable risk factors in cognitive decline with aging are highly variable with respect to the participants’ ages, cognitive status, lifestyle, and existing co-morbidities, further studies are needed on more homogeneous populations to decipher the relationship between modifiable risk factors and age-related development of cognitive impairment. Lifestyle risk factors are potentially modifiable, and the Adventists have adopted a lifestyle that targets multiple risk factors simultaneously by promoting a living whole healthy lifestyle practice. [...]this unique population cohort provides the opportunity to study how lifestyle factors can affect brain aging and AD risk in a healthy population cohort. There is evidence of an adverse role in the brain for inflammation, dysregulated metabolism reflected by insulin resistance, and impaired adaptive stress responses in precipitating cognitive decline associated with aging [26] and AD [27, 28]. [...]molecular mechanisms underlying lifestyle and genetic influences on these adverse factors in cognitive decline should be examined, focusing on their signaling pathways and comparing the rate of biological aging between individuals who maintain cognitive function and those that experience cognitive loss.