NOTE FROM TED: Please do not look to this talk for medical advice. We've flagged this talk for falling outside TEDx's curatorial guidelines. This talk represents the speaker’s personal views and experiences with nutrition, mental health, and human biology. TEDx events are independently organized by volunteers. The guidelines we give TEDx organizers are described in more detail here: http://storage.ted.com/tedx/manuals/tedx_content_guidelines.pdf Health and science journalist Max Lugavere has always been close with his mom. When she began to show signs of dementia in her early fifties, it shook him to his core. Wasn’t dementia an old person’s disease? And with drug trials having a near 100% failure rate, what was there to do? In 2017, a leading Alzheimer’s organization recognized for the first time that one third of dementia cases may be preventable. And so Max decided to devote himself to figuring out how he and his peers could best avoid the disease. In this illuminating talk, Max discusses the fascinating diet and lifestyle changes associated with significant risk reduction for Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, and what that means. For more, pick up his New York Times bestselling book, GENIUS FOODS. Max Lugavere is a filmmaker, author, and TV personality. He is the director of the upcoming film BREAD HEAD, the first-ever documentary about dementia prevention through diet and lifestyle, and is publishing his first book in early 2018 documenting his findings on how to optimize focus, productivity, mood, and long-term brain health with food. Lugavere is a regularly-appearing "core expert" on The Dr. Oz Show, has been featured on NBC Nightly News, in the Wall Street Journal, and has contributed as a health journalist to Medscape, Vice/Munchies, the Daily Beast, and others. He is a highly sought-after speaker and has been invited to keynote events such as the Biohacker Summit in Stockholm Sweden, and esteemed academic institutions like the New York Academy of Sciences. His newest book, GENIUS FOODS, is a New York Times best seller. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx