Aside from the diet/exercise/socialization/meditation, what should people be aware of?
Are there some effective supplements/nootropics, or some promising research to look into?
Regular aerobic exercise (stuff that elevates your heart rate) is still the best thing we know of. It's good for upregulation of neurogenesis and BDNF.
There are dozens of papers out there showing that a certain treatment/activity/drug increases neurogenesis. It's funny, I was talking about neuroscience to a lyft driver a way back who was curious about neurogenesis/neuroplasticity, and I told him that exercise is your best bet, but we also had some good results treating our brain-damaged rats with an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor. He shrugged off the exercise bit but of course asked me to spell out ACh inhibitor for him (which I really wouldn't recommend any random person off the street taking).
I experimented for a bit with nootropics after I graduated. Gwern's posts are really interesting if you haven't read him (https://www.gwern.net/Nootropics). A number of people have found success with a basic choline and -racetam stack. As much as tech blogs love blogging about how we're all hooked on nootropics in the valley, it's unlikely that taking some pills in the morning is going to dramatically change your life (though it might nudge it in the right direction). As one of the other replies said, lifestyle changes are still the most effective approach.
A Luminosity recruiter contacted me after I left, and I asked for evidence that their research is actually helpful. They were very kind and passed along a number of studies that they'd done. I wasn't super impressed. Among other things, they were marketing their games to the general public, not the populations represented in their small studies. Quite honestly, aerobic exercise causes a huge upregulation of neurogenesis (and many other positive things), so people would be better off going for a light jog 2-3 times a week. It felt like they were taking advantage of families desperate to help a family member with dementia and willing to try anything.