8 unexpected ways to decrease your risk of Alzheimer's

As we age, our brains can begin to get less sharp, making it harder to learn new things or remember key events.

For some people, that cognitive decline could be significant - in some rarer cases leading to Alzheimer's disease.

When it comes to Alzheimer's, there are more drug failures than successes. On average about 99% of all drugs in clinical trials never actually make it to approval.

But there are other ways to decrease your risk of getting the disease. We spoke with Neurotrack CEO Elli Kaplan, whose company recently launched an online assessment that helps people understand the state of their memory health, to learn about some of the ways you can potentially decrease your risk for Alzheimer's and cognitive decline more broadly. And a recent report from the journal Lancent found that avoiding certain lifestyle risk factors could possibly delay or prevent one-third of dementia cases around the world.

Here's what the science has to say about the best ways to lower your risk of Alzheimer's and cognitive decline.