Friends out drinkingIf you want to decrease your risk of dementia, Frontiers says midlife may be the most crucial period – exercising more, getting enough sleep, and avoiding alcohol are key steps at this life stage.But when do the effects of poor health choices start to show up? That’s a question a new paper, published in the Annals of Medicine, sought to answer.A long-running longitudinal study following hundreds of Finnish children born in Jyväskylä in 1959, which tracked participants ’til their early 60s, was key to the research.Scientists looked at their physical and mental health reports from 27 and compared the results to those seen at 36, 42, 50 and 61. They found th