I always think of the brain as a gigantic muscle. Just like any other part of our bodies, when you don’t exercise your mind, you don’t achieve maximum performance.

I can remember as a student, finding ways to help me understand and memorize the plethora of information that I was bombarded with each day. I kept those habits with me through my lifetime by doing things like reading books that made me think, daily newspapers, playing chess, doing crossword puzzles, writing and listening to music.

As I get older, yes, my knees hurt, I have back pain, and God knows my shoulder gives out once in a while — but my mind is as sharp as ever. There are many disease processes that can prematurely age the brain and interfere with memory, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, epilepsy and certain metabolic disorders. And I know that the pharmaceutical industry is trying their best to develop medications that will help these patients retain memory function.

These days, I am reading more and more about college students relying on pills to help with their concentration. Even parents are requesting that some of these pills be prescribed to their children to enhance their performance in school.

Now I’m not saying that some kids don’t need medications to help them concentrate, but the recreational use of these drugs is getting out of hand, and parents need to be aware that the potential side effects can be serious.

But what is even more upsetting to me, is what I have been reading lately about some pharmaceutical companies developing a new lifestyle pill for the general population suffering from what they like to call “age-related memory loss.”  These new medications are basically watered-down versions of some of the drugs that patients are taking for the treatment of Alzheimer’s. But these new, less-potent versions are targeted toward making healthy minds sharper and more aware.

I can see it now, let’s look at the commercial:

Husband: Honey, I’m home, and I picked up the groceries like you asked.

Wife: Thank you dear, but oh — you forgot to buy the bread and butter.

Husband: Oh, you’re right — I don’t know what happened…I just forgot.

[Insert sentimental music here]

Cue sympathetic voice saying: “Don’t forget the small things, take this ‘new pill’ that will help you remember everything you need to know to keep your wife happy.”

Getting old is not a bad thing. But taking pills to stay young, could have a very damaging effect on our future. What’s next, a pill to forget?

There has been a lot of confusion about what may have happened to kill Jett Travolta, the only son of John Travolta, so suddenly at only 16 years old. This confusion is not surprising. It happens every time that we the public mix with what is essentially a private matter. Prurient public curiosity aside, somewhere in here may be a message about the need for compliance with seizure medication, a particular problem among adolescents, where medications are about 66 percent effective. There have been some reports that Jett’s medication may have been stopped because it wasn’t working. It is not yet clear whether the parents’ belief in scientology kept them from seeking other treatments, or whether that would have made a difference in controlling Jett’s seizures.

For what it’s worth, here is my take on Jett Travolta’s tragic death:

1. It is unlikely that Kawasaki’s disease (an inflammatory disease of blood vessels that also causes fever, lymph node swelling, and rashes) played a direct role in Jett Travolta’s tragic death. Though this rare disease (4,000 cases per year) can affect the heart, and also cause seizures, it is also generally cured or in remission by age 5.
2. It has never been confirmed that Jett Travolta suffers from autism, an illness which is characterized by difficulty relating to others. Autism does not cause seizures, though the incidence of seizures is 4-32 percent in autism and only 0.5 percent in the general population.
3. Patients with epilepsy have a mortality rate 2-3 times that of the general population. Epilepsy-related causes of death in this population account for 40 percent of the deaths.
4. Death from epilepsy frequently involves problems with breathing due to obstruction of the airways, buildup of fluid in the lungs (pulmonary edema), or a cardiac arrhythmia resulting from a surge of hormones that accompanies a seizure. (the autopsy would not show an arrhythmia but would show damage to the heart or a problem with the lungs)
5. Sudden, unexplained death in epilepsy accounts for 8-17 percent of these deaths.
6. But in Jett Travolta’s case, news reports would suggest that the most likely causes of death would be trauma-related (hitting his head on the bathtub during the seizure, or drowning). If a blow to the head caused bleeding in the brain, the autopsy will show that.

Dr. Marc Siegel is an internist and associate professor of medicine at the NYU School of Medicine. He is a FOX News medical contributor and writes a health column for LA Times, where he examines TV and movies for medical accuracy. Dr. Siegel is the author of “False Alarm: The Truth about the Epidemic of Fear“ and “Bird Flu: Everything You Need to Know About the Next Pandemic.”  Read more at www.doctorsiegel.com