David PerlmutterPresident,, Perlmutter Health Center · Board-Certified Neurologist | Functional Medicine Pioneer | #1 New York Times Best-Selling Author | International Speaker | Host of The Empowering Neurologist Podcast

The Biggest Risk Factor for Alzheimer’s

20 Jul 2026 · 1 min

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In this brief video, board‑certified neurologist Dr. David Perlmutter explains that while many lifestyle factors—female sex, physical inactivity, poor restorative sleep, social isolation, and insulin resistance/diabetes—are strong contributors to Alzheimer’s disease, the single most powerful risk factor is chronological age, i.e., the number of birthdays a person has had. Age itself cannot be altered, but the other listed factors are modifiable levers that individuals can address to mitigate the overall risk associated with aging.

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This is the most powerful risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. Hi, I'm Dr. David Perlmutter. I'm a board-certified neurologist, and when we talk about factors that increase risk for Alzheimer's, we talk about things like female gender, not getting enough exercise— we call that sedentarity— not getting enough restorative sleep, even lack of social connection, and certainly being insulin resistant or full-on diabetic. These are all powerful risk factors that increase our risk for Alzheimer's, but the number one risk factor for is our chronological age. In other words, how many birthdays have we had? And turns out you can't really control that, but, you know, most of the other factors I mentioned are levers that we can pull to offset our chronological age.