Dr Kerryn Phelps, Health Editor, with Steve Liebmann, Channel Nine, 'Today'

We're joined now to bounce this around by our health editor, Dr Kerryn Phelps. Morning to you.

PHELPS: Morning, Steve.

LIEBMANN: Now, how young does my brain start ageing? I mean, is it like I'm nearing death from the day I'm born?

PHELPS: It's a scary thought, isn't it?

LIEBMANN: Yes.

PHELPS: Well they've actually looked at positron scanning of people who are in their 20s and 30s and they've found that people who are at that age who have a college education, who have very active brains and are doing a lot mentally, have better brain activity than people who haven't had that kind of educational background.

But they've started to think that the ageing process for the brain actually starts as early as the 40s and 50s and that the more you use your brain, the less likely you are to lose that mental capacity.

LIEBMANN: I thought it was earlier than 40s or 50s.

PHELPS: Well certainly the process can start earlier, and while we're all hanging out for a cure for dementia and Alzheimer's disease, there's a lot more thinking nowadays around preventing that actually happening, along the same lines as we think that it's better to prevent heart disease and cancer.

LIEBMANN: Sure.

PHELPS: And by looking after our brains from the youngest possible age, we can prevent that decline in age.

LIEBMANN: All right, so how do you do that? What do you do to look after that grey matter up there?

PHELPS: Well the University of California researchers have done quite a bit of work around this, and they talk about mental gymnastics or mental aerobics and there are a number of things that you can actually do. Now one of the techniques that they use is called the Look, Snap and Connect technique. And you know, for example, if you're driving in the car and being driven from one place to another, you may not actually observe actively what's happening.

So one of the exercises you can do is to think this is the first crossroad, this is where I have to go to actually memorise road signs. So the Snap part is to take a snapshot of the road sign and then to make some sort of connection by a word association, for example, or making your memory, training your memory to think of that journey and then going over it later on in your mind to make the connections.

LIEBMANN: And do you start this process before you start forgetting?

PHELPS: Absolutely, the idea is to train for prevention at a very early age. Things like doing puzzles, doing crosswords, learning a foreign language, and learning a musical instrument. These are all things that can help you to train your brain. But it's not just about your brain. It's also about regular physical exercise, a low fat diet, and a diet particularly rich in omega-3 rich foods like fish, avocadoes, walnuts, brazil nuts, and also foods that are high in this substance called anti-oxidants which include prunes, raisins, broccoli, beets, onions, hopefully not in the one dish. And, as much as possible, reducing stress and, of course, avoiding smoking.

LIEBMANN: Yeah, because these latest theories would suggest that the brain can actually fight back.

PHELPS: The brain can fight back. I think a lot of people, you know, literally let their brain lose it. They don't actually use their neurones. They don't fire them up every day and think, you know what can I do? Do some puzzles. As I said, there are lots of exercises that you can do for your brain and they've come up with a book called, The Memory Bible, where they give a whole lot of…

LIEBMANN: They've got the Ten Commandments.

PHELPS: …whole lot of exercises that you can do for your brain and, you know, things like having a list of unrelated words and looking at them and trying to memorise them and then going back 20 minutes later to see how many of them you've memorised.

These sorts of things, making up a rhyme perhaps to go with the words and developing memory techniques. So it's not as though - I mean people think that if they forget somebody's face or name that they're suddenly losing it.

LIEBMANN: Or where you put your glasses or the cord free phone.

PHELPS: Well exactly, and you're standing in front of the fridge saying, 'Why did I come to the fridge?'

LIEBMANN: Oh, tell me about it.

PHELPS: I know. Well that's quite common but it's not a sign that Alzheimer's is upon you. There are signs that Alzheimer's is a risk.

LIEBMANN: What about someone who wants to Thank you, Kerryn.

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