Looking for Ways to Prevent Alzheimer’s

By Nancy Laytham, Your Health and Wellness Coach

Is there a way to prevent Alzheimer’s disease? Last week, a study presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Paris suggested there might be, something that would give hope to millions who worry that one day they may be struggling with dementia.

The new study, by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, estimated how many Alzheimer’s cases might be attributable to certain behaviors or conditions: physical inactivity, smoking, depression, low education, hypertension, obesity and diabetes.

The authors used a mathematical model to surmise that these behaviors and conditions, all of which can be modified, are responsible for about HALF of the roughly 5.3 million Alzheimer’s cases in the United States and 34 million cases worldwide.

And they calculated that if people addressed these risks — by exercising, quitting smoking, increasing their education or losing weight, for example — a significant number of Alzheimer’s cases could be prevented.

Indeed, research on prevention of Alzheimer’s is in its infancy. It has only been since the 1980s that dementia has not been considered a symptom of normal aging. And studies on preventing Alzheimer’s can be complicated and costly, especially the randomized controlled trials that provide the strongest evidence. Such trials have to follow people for years, and isolating individual risk factors — separating obesity from hypertension, diabetes, nutrition and physical inactivity, for instance — is challenging.

Last year, a National Institutes of Health panel of experts with no vested interest in Alzheimer’s research concluded that “no evidence of even moderate scientific quality exists to support the association of any modifiable factor (such as nutritional supplements, herbal preparations, dietary factors, prescription or nonprescription drugs, social or economic factors, medical conditions, toxins or environmental exposures) with reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease.”

Most research, the panel found, involved observational studies, showing that people who did or did not get Alzheimer’s had certain characteristics beforehand, but not whether the characteristics were causal.

The panel found the strongest evidence for only one conclusion: that the herb gingko biloba does not prevent Alzheimer’s. There was moderate evidence that neither vitamin E nor drugs called cholinesterase inhibitors, used to treat dementia symptoms, decrease risk of Alzheimer’s. And there was moderate evidence that the gene ApoE4 significantly increases Alzheimer’s risk, as does menopause therapy with estrogens and progestins.
William Thies, the Alzheimer’s Association’s chief medical and scientific officer, said, “We would agree that we haven’t proven any of these risk factors, but there’s data that are pretty good for some of them. And in a world where we have lots of Alzheimer’s disease and no definitive medical intervention, prevention strategies that are based on lifestyle changes are certainly attractive.”Everyone agrees these risks merit attention for other reasons: preventing cancer or heart disease, improving overall health.

In the United States, they estimated that 1.1 million Alzheimer’s cases, or 21 percent, may be linked to physical inactivity. Fifteen percent may owe to depression, 11 percent to smoking, 8 percent to midlife hypertension, 7 percent to obesity, 7 percent to low education and 3 percent to diabetes.

For more information on Alzheimer's Disease, click here.