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So what can medical science tell us about Alzheimer’s disease in terms of risk factors? What are they? Can we lessen our chances of developing AD by reducing or better controlling them? What steps have I taken as a writer/blogger to lower my own health risks?
First, lets have a look at what the latest medical science and research reveals. Next, I’ll comment on what my own corrective measures have been.
Age
On January 19th 2012, the Dr. Oz Show (www.doctoroz.com/media.print/11815) offered a download of an article entitled Alzheimer’s: 5 Greatest Risk Factors. Of the five risk factors listed, age was number one. The Dr. Oz Show article had the following to offer with respect to age:
“The biggest risk factor for developing Alzheimer’s is age. For reasons we still don’t entirely understand, as we get older, we accumulate more beta-amyloid. The chances of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s increases steadily as we age. Right now, the risk of Alzheimer’s doubles every year after the age of 65. About half of people who are 85 and older have Alzheimer’s.”
The online web site, Caring.com provides an informative blog by senior editor, Paula Spencer Scott. In a blog entitled, Alzheimer’s Risk Factors, What Causes Alzheimer’s Disease and Who Gets It,
www.caring.com/articles/smoking-and-weight-alzheimers-risk?print=true) Paula Scott also lists age along with gender and family history. This is what she had to say with respect to gender and family history:
Gender
“Because women live longer than men, on average, and Alzheimer’s disease risk rises with age, more women than men develop it. In addition, some research indicates that a lack of estrogen after menopause may contribute to the fact that, overall, slightly more women are affected. Taking hormone replacement therapy has not been shown to protect against Alzheimer’s.”
Family History
“People with a family history of Alzheimer’s are more likely to develop the disease. The risk is thought to rise with each relative who had it. It’s unknown, though, exactly how much of this association is due to genetic factors and how much is due to shared lifestyle factors. Most experts believe that some combination of the two is responsible. Even when an immediate family member has the disease, however, your increased risk is only slightly higher than if your family had no history of dementia.”
Lifestyle & Body Health
The Mayo Clinic published an article entitled, Alzheimer’s Disease, on January 19th 2013 on their web site, www.mayoclinic.com/health/alzheimers-disease/DS00161 The article is a fifteen page summary of Alzheimer’s disease. In it, the following lifestyle factors are mentioned.
“There’s no lifestyle factor that’s been conclusively shown to reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s disease. However, some evidence suggests that the same factors that put you at risk of heart disease may also increase the chance that you’ll develop Alzheimer’s. Examples include: Lack of exercise, smoking, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, poorly controlled diabetes, a diet lacking in fruits and vegetables and a lack of social engagement. These risk factors are also linked to vascular dementia, a type of dementia caused by damaged blood vessels in the brain.”
High Blood Pressure
Also known as hypertension, high blood pressure, over time, weakens the walls of the arteries. Primarily in and around the heart. What causes high blood pressure? Obesity, stress, excessive use of alcohol, too much salt in your diet, diabetes and smoking. Obesity, stress, excessive use of alcohol, diabetes and smoking each on their own have been linked to a higher probability of putting one at risk for AD.
High cholesterol
First of all, cholesterol has taken a bad rap over the past twenty five or so years. Clarification is in order here. What is the purpose of cholesterol within your body in the first place?
Cholesterol, according to the Mayo Clinic, “is found in every cell in your body, and without it’s presence, our bodies would not function properly. One of the crucial missions that it serves is to aide in body hormone production. Cholesterol also aides your stomach and intestinal tract in food digestion. Thirdly, it serves as a structural component of each of the cells in your body.”
Cholesterol, as we have been informed, comes in three forms. The two we hear about the most and need to be aware of in terms of this article are LDL (low density cholesterol, or, the bad guys), and HDL (high density cholesterol, or, friends to have).
The bad stuff or LDL is responsible for the plaque buildup and logjams within your arteries.
Clogged up arteries reduce the amount of blood that is essential for keeping your brain healthy. A reduced blood flow to the brain also reduces the amount of crucial glucose, or fuel, that your brain actually uses on a daily basis for optimum health.
The good stuff or HDL guards against heart problems and serves to keep the heart and arteries working properly.
Obesity
With respect to people who are overweight, the caring.com blog had this to say: “Being overweight or obese as measured by body mass index is well associated with an increased risk of developing dementia. Men with the leanest body mass index (BMI) in their late 40’s and mid 50’s were the least likely to develop Alzheimer’s in a 20-year study of more than 7,000 Swedes: those who were heaviest were most likely. This same study also later found that women who were overweight at 70 were more likely to develop Alzheimer’s in the next 10 to 18 years.”
Stress
In a blog article entitled, Women, Stress and Alzheimer’s Disease, at alz.org/blog by Dr. Neelum T. Aggarwal, Dr. Aggarwal states that stress is a risk factor for AD. She cites a 35-year study of 1,415 women that began in Sweden in 1968. The women’s ages ranged from 38 years to 60 years at the beginning of the study and they were then reexamined in 1974, 1980, 1992 and 2000. For purposes of the study, stress was defined as a sense of irritation, tension, nervousness, anxiety, fear or sleeping problems.
Dr. Aggarwal discloses that: “Of the women initially assessed in 1968, 161 developed dementia during the follow-up period of 35 years (105 diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, 40 diagnosed with vascular dementia, 16 with another type of dementia). The average age of dementia onset was 76 years. Stress was rated as “frequent/constant” at the baseline and follow-up cycles (1968, 1974 and 1980) was related to increased risk of developing dementia and these associations did not change when adjusted for potential confounding variables.”
Diabetes
Paula Spencer Scott’s article offered this with respect to diabetes: “People with type 2 diabetes have at least double the risk of developing AD compared with people without diabetes. The risk was 65 percent higher for diabetics in 2006 data from the ongoing Religious Orders Study of priests and nuns. Some studies have found that the higher the blood sugar levels, the higher the dementia risk.”
Smoking
Scott’s caring.com article had this to say about smoking:
“It’s thought that smoking damages the cardiovascular system and causes oxidative stress, both conditions associated with Alzheimer’s. Evidence is growing that smoking raises the risk of developing AD by as much as 50 percent.”
Head Injuries
In recent years, much has been written and televised about the connection between head injuries and dementia in later life, focusing upon our military soldiers who sustained head trauma from blast type injuries in combat. Such head injuries can lead to aggregate brain damage that is called TBI, or , traumatic brain injury.
CTI, or, chronic traumatic encephalopathy is a type of brain injury that arises from repeated impact concussions to the head. Work by the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at the Boston University School of Medicine is making progress on the kind of tissue and cellular damage the brain accumulates.
Symptoms of this condition present themselves as a form of dementia including loss of decision making control, aggression, depression, sleep disorders and headaches. CTE can also lead to a higher incidence of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
In 2012, the National Football League donated $30 million to the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health for research studies affecting athletes, with brain trauma being the primary area of focus.
Parental Lifestyles
My mother passed away in the Fall of 2012. Mom had been placed in a nursing home 13 months prior, having been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Risk factors that weighed against her were several.
For one, she had been a lifelong smoker beginning in her teen that then continued for approximately fifty years. As Mom’s AD became more apparent, she shied away from solid foods of any kind in favor of high sodium soups. She loved any kind of soup there was as long as it was chicken soup. Second, she also suffered from adult diabetes and struggled in keeping up consistently with her diabetic medications and injections. In time, she resisted taking and swallowing her pills. A pill crusher and apple sauce or pudding were then introduced as the medication masking foodstuffs to get her to ingest what was crucial for her. Third, mom sustained a very nasty concussion injury in an automobile accident in her early sixties.
Dad passed away in early summer, 2013 after having been placed in a nursing facility less than seven months before for dementia/Alzheimer’s disease. Dad’s risk factors were several in number as well.
First was high cholesterol from a lifelong diet heavy in buttermilk, ice cream, cheese, processed meats, and high sodium snacks. Pop loved milk! He could easily knock down a gallon of milk in a day. Salami was another. Wolfing down a whole six inch long stick of high sodium/high fat/high nitrate/nitrite salami in a day was not out of the ordinary for him. Potato chips or corn chips were another favorite; along with quarts of Picante sauce to shovel the chips into. Hershey’s chocolate kisses were another item he loved to consume as well as hand out to others. Second, he struggled with cardiovascular disease. Third, dad also developed adult diabetes in his early sixties. The last couple of years of his life before he was placed in a nursing home, my wife and I had made substantial inroads into weaning him off many of his favorite junk foods and overindulgent items. A move in the right direction but too late in the game to counter the bad effects of what had already set in.
My Corrective Measures
Well over a decade ago, and before I took on my unforeseen calling as a parental caregiver, I made several affirmative changes to my diet and lifestyle. I cut back substantially on processed meats, dairy products (cheese was my passion), and high sugar snacks and soft drinks. Exercise and physical activity increased and my weight and waistline began to diminish. Salads, fruits and vegetable consumption have been my focus for quite some time. My wife has introduced a substantial number of organic based food items into our diet as well.
My primary care physician was delighted with the results of my physical exam, as much as I was, in early December 2013. I was within seven pounds of my optimum weight goal, blood panels were all good for cholesterol, blood sugar and other vitals. No signs nor symptoms of heart issues. Blood pressure and pulse are boringly normal.
Occasionally I have been asked if I worry a lot about eventually developing Alzheimer’s disease myself? The answer is No, I do not.
What will be will be. In the meantime, it is my belief that taking charge of and making affirmative changes in my lifestyle choices some twelve to fifteen years back most certainly have lowered my risk factors for developing one of the dementia's, diabetes or cardiovascular disease.
Education, empowerment and self discipline have been my tools. My disappointment in a way is that much of what we now know about AD and dementia was not out there or available to my folks in their younger years to avail themselves of.
Sometimes, during the course of caring for those that are dying or very ill, your takeaway is that you learn how to live better or differently for yourself. This has been so for this writer.
Jeff Dodson
December 26th 2013
