Abstract
Neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia, represent an escalating global health crisis projected to affect 135 million individuals by 2050. Given the limited efficacy of traditional pharmacological approaches, a paradigm shifts toward modifiable risk reduction is essential. The current consensus indicates that up to 45% of dementia cases are potentially preventable through optimization of lifestyle and nutritional determinants. This manuscript presents a lifespan perspective on neuroprotection, asserting that cognitive resilience is a cumulative process that begins in the primordial developmental window. We analyze how maternal nutrition and adolescent dietary choices program "brain reserve" and determine late-life vulnerability through mechanisms of "inflammaging" and metabolic energy starvation. Central to the degenerative trajectory is the "pathological bridge" established by Western dietary patterns and ultra-processed foods (UPFs). Recent evidence (2024–2025) links high UPF consumption to a 28% acceleration in global cognitive decline and to systemic neuroinflammation mediated by the gut-microbiota-immune-brain axis. Conversely, evidence-based nutritional patterns, such as the Mediterranean and Mediterranean Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) diets, offer significant neuroprotection by neutralizing oxidative stress and enhancing cerebral perfusion. We further evaluate innovative strategies, including psych biotics to modulate the gut microbiome and ketogenic therapies for "brain energy rescue" in glucose-impaired brains. Findings from the Finnish Geriatric Intervention Study to Prevent Cognitive Impairment and Disability (FINGER) and Ornish trials suggest that intensive multidomain interventions can stabilize or improve cognition even after clinical onset. We conclude that integrating nutritional screening into routine clinical care and national policy frameworks is an urgent imperative to mitigate the personal and economic burden of pathological aging.
Keywords
Nutritional psychiatry, Neurodegeneration, Gut-brain axis, Lifespan neuroprotection