Day 287 of 365 - Alzheimer's - A Multifactoral Condition
Alzheimer's disease is not just caused or diagnosed based on the presence of amyloid plaque or neuronal tangles in the brain. There are many factors involved in both the development of the disease process and the diagnosis. Diagnosis is multifaceted and requires an experienced clinician to interpret a variety of test results. These usually include cognitive and memory tests, different kinds of lab tests and brain imaging. Once a diagnosis is made, the medical treatments currently available address the symptoms rather than the disease process. Even drugs that might remove the amyloid do not stop the disease progress or improve the long term outcome.
Why don't the drugs cure the condition? It's because there are many factors involved, and the medications are only addressing one. This does not mean that drugs might not be helpful in the future, but they need to be in combination with a personalized program that addresses all the other risk factors contributing to the disease.
What are those risk factors? The primary ones include: insulin resistance, prediabetes or type 2 diabetes; being female - due to hormonal and metabolic factors; being overweight, which in itself causes low grade chronic inflammation; being over 65, which is more related to biological age, in terms of how much damage has occurred to the immune system over the life span.
What kind of lab tests could we ask for that would help us know our risk? The main ones include: genetic testing, with professional interpretation; fasting blood sugar and fasting insulin; C-reactive protein, as a marker of inflammation; immune factors to look at our autoimmune responses.
In an ideal world, doctors would be routinely monitoring the brain health of their patients. However, in our current system of time limited and financially driven health care, this is not feasible. We don't need to wait for our doctor to tell us there is a problem though. There are so many things we can do on our own to reduce our risk factors, or even slow down the disease process that has begun. This is not a random idea from a few people. Over the last decade, for example, there have been thousands of research papers that report on lifestyle interventions, such as nutrition and exercise having tremendous effects on brain health.
It's actually very empowering to realize that most of our health and wellness comes down to the personal choices we make on a day to day basis. The traditional treatment approaches for Alzheimer's mainly look at the end result targets of brain damage, rather than the causative factors. We can radically influence many of those risk factors. When you get at the root causes, you get a sustained improvement in cognition even in people already diagnosed.
To reiterate what we have the power to address, either from a treatment or prevention perspective, here are the main factors: nutrition; exercise; unwinding from stress; restorative sleep and optimizing cognitive activity. We need all of these, all the time, as early as possible according to one of the doctors interviewed in the series I'm watching.
Although this series is specifically about Alzheimer's disease, the fact is, that improving our status in any of the areas mentioned will help prevent or manage any complex chronic disease. That is a benefit to us at any age. Here's a quote from Shakespeare to affirm that: Our bodies are our gardens to which our wills are gardeners.
Why don't the drugs cure the condition? It's because there are many factors involved, and the medications are only addressing one. This does not mean that drugs might not be helpful in the future, but they need to be in combination with a personalized program that addresses all the other risk factors contributing to the disease.
What are those risk factors? The primary ones include: insulin resistance, prediabetes or type 2 diabetes; being female - due to hormonal and metabolic factors; being overweight, which in itself causes low grade chronic inflammation; being over 65, which is more related to biological age, in terms of how much damage has occurred to the immune system over the life span.
What kind of lab tests could we ask for that would help us know our risk? The main ones include: genetic testing, with professional interpretation; fasting blood sugar and fasting insulin; C-reactive protein, as a marker of inflammation; immune factors to look at our autoimmune responses.
In an ideal world, doctors would be routinely monitoring the brain health of their patients. However, in our current system of time limited and financially driven health care, this is not feasible. We don't need to wait for our doctor to tell us there is a problem though. There are so many things we can do on our own to reduce our risk factors, or even slow down the disease process that has begun. This is not a random idea from a few people. Over the last decade, for example, there have been thousands of research papers that report on lifestyle interventions, such as nutrition and exercise having tremendous effects on brain health.
It's actually very empowering to realize that most of our health and wellness comes down to the personal choices we make on a day to day basis. The traditional treatment approaches for Alzheimer's mainly look at the end result targets of brain damage, rather than the causative factors. We can radically influence many of those risk factors. When you get at the root causes, you get a sustained improvement in cognition even in people already diagnosed.
To reiterate what we have the power to address, either from a treatment or prevention perspective, here are the main factors: nutrition; exercise; unwinding from stress; restorative sleep and optimizing cognitive activity. We need all of these, all the time, as early as possible according to one of the doctors interviewed in the series I'm watching.
Although this series is specifically about Alzheimer's disease, the fact is, that improving our status in any of the areas mentioned will help prevent or manage any complex chronic disease. That is a benefit to us at any age. Here's a quote from Shakespeare to affirm that: Our bodies are our gardens to which our wills are gardeners.
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