Professor offers Alzheimer's tips

Excerpts from cnn.com

Edythe London, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at the University of California, Los Angeles, has five tips for keeping your memory sharp. London says they help work on memory centers of the brain, including the cerebral cortex and the hippocampus.

1. Antioxidants
London makes sure her mother takes vitamins A, C, and E. They're antioxidants, which prevent cell damage and are believed by some to slow down diseases of aging. "There are studies that suggest antioxidants might prevent dementia," she says.

2. Fish oil supplements
Dr. Gary Small, director of the UCLA Center on Aging, says aging brains show signs of inflammation, and fish oil has anti-inflammatory properties.

3. Phosphatidylserine supplements
Phosphatidylserine is a lipid found naturally in the body. Small says he's not 100 percent convinced these supplements will help stave off dementia, but they're worth a try. "If I start having memory problems when I get older, I'll give them a trial run and see if they help," says Small, author of the new book "iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind."

4. Curry
Small, who's 57, says that as he gets older, he might also try eating more foods with curry in them. "Some studies in Singapore show that those who ate curry once a week had better memory scores," he said.

5. Cross-training your brain
"Our brains can be made stronger through exercise," says Andrew Carle, assistant professor of in the department of health administration and policy at George Mason University. "In the same way physical exercise can delay many of the effects of aging on the body, there's some evidence cognitive exercise can at least delay the onset of Alzheimer's."