Alzheimer’s disease is mostly preventable….
Today's post: Friday, 9-21-2007
Some of the things are relatively easy & some are more challenging at least at first.
But if you do all or most of them your chances of Alzheimer’s disease are small & the risks of age related mental decline is close to zero.
We list nine different ways below. Check them all out & do as many as you can.
1. Keep learning new things of value.
(Most blog readers & almost all the readers of this blog tend to do this.) Interestingly, learning new languages or already knowing two or more is extremely valuable.
Research at the University of California at Berkeley found that learning interesting new things triggers the growth of new neurons & interconnections even in elderly people.
And, your brain is like a hologram. The more variety of information, brain cells, & interconnections you already have, the more damage it can sustain & still operate well.
2. Exercise regularly almost every week to every week.
You may lose some brain cells from time to time. Recently, research found that physical exercise also triggers the growth of new neurons. So people who exercise have brains that are continuously being rebuilt. People who do none tend not to.
Obesity & bad blood lipids increase your insulin resistance & impair your circulation. Both of these things damage your brain & keep it from its best operation. Exercise directly decreases & improves insulin resistance. It burns calories directly & grows & maintains muscles so you burn more calories even at rest. So exercise is essential to avoiding or ending obesity.
And, exercise directly increases circulation while you do it; it raises your level of HDL that keeps your arteries clean by removing excess LDL cholesterol; & improves the flexibility & responsiveness of your blood vessels which maximizes your circulation & helps avoid high blood pressure which damages your blood vessels & heart. And, exercise strengthens your heart & usually grows new & extra blood vessels to your heart.
3. Optimize your blood lipids & other measures to avoid damaging your circulation, brain, & heart.
a) Do everything safe you can to keep your HDL as high as possible. (over 40 is essential & over 60 is important & even higher is better. Exercise is essential. And, there are many other foods, drinks & supplements that help keep your HDL high.)
b) Keep your LDL cholesterol lower than 125. (At or lower than 100 may well be better as long as HDL remains high.) Eat right so you avoid excess saturated fat & all transfats. Eat foods like oatmeal & beans with soluble fiber—including lots of vegetables & many fruits each week. And, if you aren’t allergic to them eat unsalted, dry, raw nuts because they have fiber & sterols that lower LDL. Then take sterol supplements &/or niacin if your LDL is still over 125. Most people who do these things can avoid needing statin drugs Because their LDL cholesterol will fall to safe levels. But, after doing ALL of this, if your LDL is still a good bit higher than 125, particularly over 160, or you already have serious circulation problems too, your doctor may well put you on statin drugs to lower your LDL cholesterol. It’s the least desirable option due to cost & side effects; but it may then be advisable. (If you do take statins be sure to also take 100 mg to 200 mg a day of CoQ10. This protects your heart from one of the known problems of statins since they LOWER CoQ10; & doing so tends to prevent the side effects that result from that like feeling de-energized.)
c) Keep your homocysteine level well under 9.0. It directly causes heart & circulation damage & increases your rate of aging at higher levels. Worse, people who have levels of 9.0 & higher are at sharply increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease. (See our recent post on how to lower it if it’s 9.0 or higher. And, GET your homocysteine level tested. Many doctors don’t yet know to test for it. Worse, even among the more health oriented of our readers, it’s likely to be well over 9.0 in the majority of you over 40 if you aren’t already doing the things that lower it !!)
d) Keep your fasting glucose under 100 & your HBA1C at 5.9 or less. High glucose & insulin levels directly damage capillaries & the rest of your circulation system.
This is ESSENTIAL since there is ALSO evidence the Alzheimer’s plaques that cause the disease may be caused by too high glucose &/or insulin levels.
Avoid sugars, starches, & refined grains at least 95 to 98 % of the time in what you eat & drink. And, NEVER voluntarily eat or drink foods with High fructose corn syrup.
Eat lots of vegetables & health OK protein foods like nuts & beans & nonfat or very lowfat dairy foods & health OK fish like wild caught salmon. Eat some health OK fats & oils like wild caught salmon, nuts, extra virgin olive oil, & avocados. And, eat some but a wide variety of the more nutritious fruits.
And, here also exercise is essential since it burns glucose & lowers or prevents or even reverses insulin resistance.
e) Keep your blood pressure well under 160 over 90 with every nondrug method you can find that works until it tends to run about 115 over 75 or a bit less. And, if it gets to 160 over 90 or higher use every nondrug method you can find that works & keep using them. And, be sure to get drugs to lower it below that level from your doctor & TAKE them until you get your blood pressure down well below that. Then keep taking them if your nondrug measures don’t keep it low. (If you do enough of the nondrug measures well & long enough, taking drugs may well be temporary. But at 160 over 90 & higher you damage your heart & blood vessels & sharply increase your risk of Alzheimers & other mental decline.
4. Eat organic blueberries at least twice a week; eat fish & seafood that’s safe to eat & high in Omega 3 oils at least twice a week like wild caught salmon &/or take purified DHA & Omega 3 supplements; take 100 to 200 mg a day of alpha lipoic acid, & take a good multivitamin plus mineral supplement daily.
Blueberries & foods & supplements with safe Omega 3’s are particularly important as is the alpha lipoic acid. Eating blueberries actually improves the mental function of older people who eat them. And some research showed similar effects for alpha lipoic acid.
And, high omega 3 levels seem to prevent Alzheimers & help to lower blood pressure when it’s high.
5. Take Curcumin or Turmeric supplements every day.
(Curcumin is the active ingredient in Turmeric.) Peoples who eat lots of Curcumin in curry spices tend to hardly ever get Alzheimers. Either the antioxidant properties of it prevent the plaques from being formed or they help your immune system clear them. My own guess is that Curcumin does both.
6. Be social & talk to people you like & even some that are just Ok every day & every week.
Social connections keep you interested in life & keep your brain young. And, they also help you relieve stress & avoid high blood pressure.
7. Avoid excessive stress when you can & get regular stress relief.
High levels of unrelieved stress damage your brain’s hippocampus which serves as the cpu or controlling director of your memory acquisition & retrieval. Using the other methods here reduce the damage & help you recover. But avoiding the damage in the first place is well worth doing if you can.
8. Avoid ingesting mercury.
It destroys neurons. Don’t eat fish & seafood known to be high in it. And, if you develop symptoms of mental decline, get your blood level tested. If you test high, there are ways of lowering it.
9. Avoid ingesting aluminum.
This one is controversial as the high levels of aluminum in Alzheimers plaques may be more of a lack of proper cleaning out due to other factors than taking in too much aluminum. But there is no evidence that confirms this for sure that I’ve yet seen.
So avoid eating foods that contain alum or aluminum containing baking powder. (Since the commercial baked goods most likely to have this also contain refined grains, sugar, & all too often transfats, the best thing to do at this time is never to eat them.) The good news is that home bakers can use double acting baking powder that has no aluminum. Rumsford is the brand I’ve seen in stores.
Don’t take over the counter medicines that contain aluminum or take them as short a time as possible & very rarely.
If you possibly can, use under arm deodorants that contain no aluminum. (The long acting ones usually do. Check out the label before you buy.
And, don’t use pure aluminum cookware. (Good quality stainless steel covered aluminum is fine. You just want to be sure there is no direct contact between the aluminum & your food.)
To the best of your ability, do all these things & you are unlikely to get Alzheimers disease & very unlikely to get age related mental decline.
Today's post: Friday, 9-21-2007
Some of the things are relatively easy & some are more challenging at least at first.
But if you do all or most of them your chances of Alzheimer’s disease are small & the risks of age related mental decline is close to zero.
We list nine different ways below. Check them all out & do as many as you can.
1. Keep learning new things of value.
(Most blog readers & almost all the readers of this blog tend to do this.) Interestingly, learning new languages or already knowing two or more is extremely valuable.
Research at the University of California at Berkeley found that learning interesting new things triggers the growth of new neurons & interconnections even in elderly people.
And, your brain is like a hologram. The more variety of information, brain cells, & interconnections you already have, the more damage it can sustain & still operate well.
2. Exercise regularly almost every week to every week.
You may lose some brain cells from time to time. Recently, research found that physical exercise also triggers the growth of new neurons. So people who exercise have brains that are continuously being rebuilt. People who do none tend not to.
Obesity & bad blood lipids increase your insulin resistance & impair your circulation. Both of these things damage your brain & keep it from its best operation. Exercise directly decreases & improves insulin resistance. It burns calories directly & grows & maintains muscles so you burn more calories even at rest. So exercise is essential to avoiding or ending obesity.
And, exercise directly increases circulation while you do it; it raises your level of HDL that keeps your arteries clean by removing excess LDL cholesterol; & improves the flexibility & responsiveness of your blood vessels which maximizes your circulation & helps avoid high blood pressure which damages your blood vessels & heart. And, exercise strengthens your heart & usually grows new & extra blood vessels to your heart.
3. Optimize your blood lipids & other measures to avoid damaging your circulation, brain, & heart.
a) Do everything safe you can to keep your HDL as high as possible. (over 40 is essential & over 60 is important & even higher is better. Exercise is essential. And, there are many other foods, drinks & supplements that help keep your HDL high.)
b) Keep your LDL cholesterol lower than 125. (At or lower than 100 may well be better as long as HDL remains high.) Eat right so you avoid excess saturated fat & all transfats. Eat foods like oatmeal & beans with soluble fiber—including lots of vegetables & many fruits each week. And, if you aren’t allergic to them eat unsalted, dry, raw nuts because they have fiber & sterols that lower LDL. Then take sterol supplements &/or niacin if your LDL is still over 125. Most people who do these things can avoid needing statin drugs Because their LDL cholesterol will fall to safe levels. But, after doing ALL of this, if your LDL is still a good bit higher than 125, particularly over 160, or you already have serious circulation problems too, your doctor may well put you on statin drugs to lower your LDL cholesterol. It’s the least desirable option due to cost & side effects; but it may then be advisable. (If you do take statins be sure to also take 100 mg to 200 mg a day of CoQ10. This protects your heart from one of the known problems of statins since they LOWER CoQ10; & doing so tends to prevent the side effects that result from that like feeling de-energized.)
c) Keep your homocysteine level well under 9.0. It directly causes heart & circulation damage & increases your rate of aging at higher levels. Worse, people who have levels of 9.0 & higher are at sharply increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease. (See our recent post on how to lower it if it’s 9.0 or higher. And, GET your homocysteine level tested. Many doctors don’t yet know to test for it. Worse, even among the more health oriented of our readers, it’s likely to be well over 9.0 in the majority of you over 40 if you aren’t already doing the things that lower it !!)
d) Keep your fasting glucose under 100 & your HBA1C at 5.9 or less. High glucose & insulin levels directly damage capillaries & the rest of your circulation system.
This is ESSENTIAL since there is ALSO evidence the Alzheimer’s plaques that cause the disease may be caused by too high glucose &/or insulin levels.
Avoid sugars, starches, & refined grains at least 95 to 98 % of the time in what you eat & drink. And, NEVER voluntarily eat or drink foods with High fructose corn syrup.
Eat lots of vegetables & health OK protein foods like nuts & beans & nonfat or very lowfat dairy foods & health OK fish like wild caught salmon. Eat some health OK fats & oils like wild caught salmon, nuts, extra virgin olive oil, & avocados. And, eat some but a wide variety of the more nutritious fruits.
And, here also exercise is essential since it burns glucose & lowers or prevents or even reverses insulin resistance.
e) Keep your blood pressure well under 160 over 90 with every nondrug method you can find that works until it tends to run about 115 over 75 or a bit less. And, if it gets to 160 over 90 or higher use every nondrug method you can find that works & keep using them. And, be sure to get drugs to lower it below that level from your doctor & TAKE them until you get your blood pressure down well below that. Then keep taking them if your nondrug measures don’t keep it low. (If you do enough of the nondrug measures well & long enough, taking drugs may well be temporary. But at 160 over 90 & higher you damage your heart & blood vessels & sharply increase your risk of Alzheimers & other mental decline.
4. Eat organic blueberries at least twice a week; eat fish & seafood that’s safe to eat & high in Omega 3 oils at least twice a week like wild caught salmon &/or take purified DHA & Omega 3 supplements; take 100 to 200 mg a day of alpha lipoic acid, & take a good multivitamin plus mineral supplement daily.
Blueberries & foods & supplements with safe Omega 3’s are particularly important as is the alpha lipoic acid. Eating blueberries actually improves the mental function of older people who eat them. And some research showed similar effects for alpha lipoic acid.
And, high omega 3 levels seem to prevent Alzheimers & help to lower blood pressure when it’s high.
5. Take Curcumin or Turmeric supplements every day.
(Curcumin is the active ingredient in Turmeric.) Peoples who eat lots of Curcumin in curry spices tend to hardly ever get Alzheimers. Either the antioxidant properties of it prevent the plaques from being formed or they help your immune system clear them. My own guess is that Curcumin does both.
6. Be social & talk to people you like & even some that are just Ok every day & every week.
Social connections keep you interested in life & keep your brain young. And, they also help you relieve stress & avoid high blood pressure.
7. Avoid excessive stress when you can & get regular stress relief.
High levels of unrelieved stress damage your brain’s hippocampus which serves as the cpu or controlling director of your memory acquisition & retrieval. Using the other methods here reduce the damage & help you recover. But avoiding the damage in the first place is well worth doing if you can.
8. Avoid ingesting mercury.
It destroys neurons. Don’t eat fish & seafood known to be high in it. And, if you develop symptoms of mental decline, get your blood level tested. If you test high, there are ways of lowering it.
9. Avoid ingesting aluminum.
This one is controversial as the high levels of aluminum in Alzheimers plaques may be more of a lack of proper cleaning out due to other factors than taking in too much aluminum. But there is no evidence that confirms this for sure that I’ve yet seen.
So avoid eating foods that contain alum or aluminum containing baking powder. (Since the commercial baked goods most likely to have this also contain refined grains, sugar, & all too often transfats, the best thing to do at this time is never to eat them.) The good news is that home bakers can use double acting baking powder that has no aluminum. Rumsford is the brand I’ve seen in stores.
Don’t take over the counter medicines that contain aluminum or take them as short a time as possible & very rarely.
If you possibly can, use under arm deodorants that contain no aluminum. (The long acting ones usually do. Check out the label before you buy.
And, don’t use pure aluminum cookware. (Good quality stainless steel covered aluminum is fine. You just want to be sure there is no direct contact between the aluminum & your food.)
To the best of your ability, do all these things & you are unlikely to get Alzheimers disease & very unlikely to get age related mental decline.
Labels: Alzheimers, Alzheimers disease, memory, memory problems, senility
posted by David at 2:10 PM
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