India, Oct. 10 -- We know what a heart attack looks like: The flashing ambulance lights, the frantic hospital corridor, the frightened family, a life violently interrupted. Cardiometabolic disease has rightfully become one of the most visible public health crises of our time.

But the same metabolic forces are also damaging an organ that offers no such drama. There is no ambulance for a struggling neuron. No emergency ward for a slowly weakened synapse. No single moment when anyone can point to the exact instant cognitive reserve began to erode.

Public conversation will centre, as it should, on psychological stress, anxiety, and burnout. Yet a parallel, less visible crisis is unfolding underneath them - one that ties our metabolic state ...