Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the leading cause of dementia, and the most prevalent
neurodegenerative disease in the elderly. The prevalence of AD is predicted to rise as life
expectancy grows across populations. The exact cause of this devastating disease is still
unknown; however, it is an aging-related multi-factorial disorder, and growing evidence
supports the contribution of modifiable environmental factors to unmodifiable factors
such as gene and ageing itself. The recent advancement of methodologies and techniques
for early diagnosis of AD facilitates the investigation of strategies to reduce the risk for AD
progression in the earliest stages of the disease. Pharmacological attempts at curing,
halting or modifying it have, by and large, been unsuccessful, and no breakthrough is seen
in the near future. However, a lot of elements that seem to contribute to the disease such
as risk factors have been identified, mainly from epidemiological and basic research
studies. Many of these are amenable to lifestyle modification. Therefore, prevention in the
preclinical stage is likely the most effective way to decrease the incidence of this ageassociated
dreadful neurodegenerative condition, and its associated burden for individuals
and society. We provide an overview of modifiable risk factors for AD along with the
supporting evidence.