It's all very well being told that the best way to stave off ageing is to do, think, eat or behave in a certain way when you're young, but when you are young, you don't ever believe you're going to get old, so by the time you are getting old it's too late. You've frittered away you're entire youth partying, denying your body sleep and exercise and eating junk food so by the time you're 40, you look 50 and feel 60, aaaaaagh!

But is it really too late? Is there something we could, should, might do in middle age to hold back the tidal wave of old age? Welcome to The Intervention Factory - an on-going Scottish research project, designed by Associate Professor from Heriot Watt, Dr Alan Gow, aimed at understanding which ordinary, everyday actions and behaviours could be the key to helping us stay sharper for longer.

In this Brainwaves, Pennie Latin listens in to Alan's Edinburgh Fringe Show at the Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas based on our cognitive decline and then explores the a piece of research called the What Keeps You Sharp survey which explores how accurate our own ideas are about what does and doesn't keep us younger for longer.