Japanese Doctors Say Memory Loss Isn't Only About Age.
Research Points to These 3 Common Drinks.

At 84, retired U.S. Army Major Frank Okafor still recites his unit's radio frequencies from 1971 without missing a digit. He remembers faces, names, and conversations from half a century ago with an ease that unnerves younger people around him. His physician, who has treated him for nearly 20 years, calls him extraordinary. Frank disagrees.

"I just never drank the stuff everyone else was drinking," he says.

To a casual observer, that sounds like the kind of thing any 84-year-old might say. But to some physicians in Japan — the country whose Okinawa prefecture has long been studied for one of the highest proportions of centenarians in the world^[1] — it touches a question researchers are taking seriously: how much do everyday habits shape the way our memory ages?

Over many years of practice, Dr. Morita noticed that the patients who scored highest on cognitive assessments did not share an unusual medication, a single genetic marker, or one exercise routine. What many of them did share was a set of everyday habits — including avoiding three drinks that a lot of people consume every day. His observation is anecdotal. But each of those three drinks has since been examined in large, peer-reviewed studies.

The 3 Drinks Researchers Have Linked to Memory and Brain Health

What Major Okafor Had in Common With Them

When Major Okafor's doctor reviewed this list with him during a routine visit, Okafor was quiet for a moment.

"Never been a drinker. Cut soda out completely in my forties — felt foggy after it, even then. Never liked the diet stuff either." He looked up. "I wasn't being strategic. It just didn't feel good."

His physician has noticed similar habits among several of her older patients. "The charts say ordinary," she says. "The minds are remarkable. And when you look at what these patients eat and drink, the differences from the general population are hard to miss."

Dr. Morita is careful about his conclusions. Memory is shaped by many factors that drinks alone cannot address. The 2024 report of the Lancet Commission on dementia identified 14 modifiable risk factors — among them physical inactivity, high blood pressure, untreated hearing loss, social isolation, and excessive alcohol use — and estimated that addressing them could prevent or delay nearly half of dementia cases.^[7]

"By the time most patients come to me with concerns about memory, the habits have been in place for decades," he says. "Changing them early is best. But the brain can still adapt later in life." That is consistent with research: in a randomized trial of 120 older adults, one year of aerobic exercise increased the size of the hippocampus by about 2% and improved spatial memory.^[8]

What Else Researchers Are Studying

Beyond changing what they drink, many older adults are interested in non-drug ways to stay sharp, and two areas have peer-reviewed support. In the ACTIVE trial, older adults who completed ten sessions of reasoning or speed-of-processing training still showed benefits in those specific abilities ten years later.^[9] And in a small study of adults aged 60 to 84, short sound pulses played during deep sleep enhanced slow-wave sleep activity and improved overnight memory retention.^[10]

"I am not in the business of making promises," Dr. Morita says. "These are early findings, and results vary from person to person. But they are worth knowing about."

For anyone over 60 who has noticed that names take longer to surface, or that thinking feels "slower" than it once did, the message from these physicians was consistent — and it is a good conversation to have with your own doctor:

Start by looking at what you drink.