A no-brainer for protecting your brain

Jul 9th 2026|4 min readFEW CONDITIONS are as feared as dementia, of which Alzheimer’s is the most common cause. This is mostly because of its insidious nature, since it strips people of their sense of self and leaves those who love them caring for a stranger. “Alzheimer’s is me unwinding, losing trust in myself, a butt of my own jokes and, on bad days, capable of playing hunt the slipper by myself, and losing,” wrote the late Sir Terry Pratchett, a novelist who had a rare form of it. “I felt totally alone, with the world receding from me in every direction.”This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “A no-brainer for your brain”From the July 11th 2026 editionDiscover stories from this section and more in the list of contents⇒Explore the edition