Health Habits

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Posts Tagged ‘alzheimers’

The Secret of Senior Fitness

January 26th, 2010

The diet/weight loss industry is a multi-billion dollar business.

So is the healthcare industry…

and the pharmaceutical industry…

and the health insurance biz.

Billions and billions and billions and billions.

In contrast, the amount of money being spent on health promotion and disease prevention last year in the United States was $11.78.

But, that’s okay.

Because, according to a group of studies published this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers have identified a low cost solution that “not only helps maintain good health, but may even prevent the onset of chronic diseases, such as heart disease, osteoarthritis and dementia”.

And considering that the Baby Boomers have begun to enter their senior years, senior citizen health & fitness is about to become a major social & economic driver in the coming years.

So, we have to decide:

Do we want to spend billions & billions attempting to treat the symptoms of heart disease, dementia, osteoporosis, diabetes, cancer, alzheimers….?
Or do we want to spend $11.78 and prevent these diseases from happening in the first place?

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The Secret of Senior Fitness

So what is this low-cost secret to senior fitness?

According to these studies presented in this month’s Archives of Internal Medicine, it’s EXERCISE

Study # 1 showed that seniors with higher levelsof midlife physical activity experienced exceptionalhealth status among women who survive to older ages (70+) and reinforce the conclusion that physical activity improves overallhealth as we age.
A second study looked at the effectiveness of targeted exercise programs on the health-related quality of life of institutionalized senior citizens. Amongst this demographic, exercise produced an improvement in the overall quality of daily activities – walking, continence, nutrition and mental cognition.
A third study showed that 1 to 2 resistance training workouts per week produced significant improvements in the cognitive functions of 65 to 75 year old women.
A fourth study showed that a exercise program focusing on intensity helped women (65+) improve their bone mineral density, fall rate and cardio heart disease risk factors…with no increase in direct costs.
The fifth study showed that people 55+ are much less likely to experience cognitive impairment (dementia, alzheimers) as they glide into their senior years.

These studies back up previous research showing that:

High blood sugar levels significantly increase your risk of cognitive impairment (link)
Overweight/Obese seniors (60 – 75) were able to increase their physical fitness, increase their muscle mass and lose body-fat…all in 4 months. (link)
Daily physical activity is able to counteract fat genes (FTO) (link)

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So, what are you supposed to do with all this info?

Stay active
Encourage your friends & family to be active. Healthcare costs associated with inactivity & poor diet and lifestyle choices are going to skyrocket as the bulk of the baby boomer population enters their senior years. Everybody ready for another economic meltdown?
Encourage your employer / government to get proactive about rising healthcare costs by spending a little more on health promotion / disease prevention. Public health & fitness facilities and programs need to become a priority.

And, to do my part, I will post an article tomorrow about the type of fitness program seniors should be doing.

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Your Anti-Senility Prescription

December 31st, 2008

This post is for everyone out there with a loved one over the age of 50.

.New research shows that our lifestyle choices (nutrition and physical activity) have a powerful effect on age related cognitive health.

Translation: Senility is mostly preventable with diet and exercise.

And guess what?

The same lifestyle choices that have created an epidemic of obesity in the Western world are also responsible for much of the dementia in today’s senior citizens.

Here’s the science:

Study #1

Researchers from the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain found that maintaining steady blood sugar levels, even in the absence of disease (diabetes, metabolic syndrome) is an important strategy for preserving cognitive health.

For many of us, senior moments are a normal part of aging. Such lapses in memory, according to this new research, can be blamed, on rising blood glucose levels as we age.

Whether through physical exercise, diet or drugs, our research suggests that improving glucose metabolism could help some of us avert the cognitive slide that occurs in many of us as we age,” reported lead investigator Scott A. Small, M.D.

Although it is widely known that the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease cause damage to the hippocampus, the area of the brain essential for memory and learning, studies have suggested that it is also vulnerable to normal aging.

Until now, the underlying causes of age-related hippocampal dysfunction have remained largely unknown.

In previous studies, Dr. Small et al had discovered that decreasing brain function in the dentate gyrus region of the hippocampus is the main contributor of normal age related cognitive decline.

In this new study, researchers used medical imaging devices to “help us better understand the basic mechanisms behind hippocampal dysfunction in the aged.”

Their research looked at measures that typically change during aging, like:

rising blood sugar,
body mass index,
cholesterol and
insulin levels.

The research found that decreasing activity in the dentate gyrus only correlated with levels of blood glucose.

“Showing for the first time that blood glucose selectively targets the dentate gyrus is not only our most conclusive finding, but it is the most important for ‘normal’ aging- that is hippocampal dysfunction that occurs in the absence of any disease states. There have been many proposed reasons for age-related hippocampal decline; this new study suggests that we may now know one of them,” said Dr. Small.

Conclusion

Control your blood sugar and prevent senility

How?

Read this and this and this and this.

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Study #2

In this study, researchers found that as we age, a slow, chronic starvation of the brain appears to be one of the major triggers of Alzheimer’s disease.

When the brain doesn’t get enough glucose, “a process is launched that ultimately produces the sticky clumps of protein that appear to be a cause of Alzheimer’s”. During this process, a key brain protein (eIF2alpha) increases the production of an enzyme which, in turn, flips a switch that produces the sticky clumps of protein.

And what causes this reduction in blood glucose to the brain?

Cardiovascular Disease

And how do we prevent cardiovascular disease?

But don’t take my word for it.

“This finding is significant because it suggests that improving blood flow to the brain might be an effective therapeutic approach to prevent or treat Alzheimer’s,” said Vassar, a professor of cell and molecular biology at the Feinberg School.

A simple preventive strategy people can follow to improve blood flow to the brain is getting exercise, reducing cholesterol and managing hypertension.

“If people start early enough, maybe they can dodge the bullet,” Vassar said.

For people who already have symptoms, vasodilators, which increase blood flow, may help the delivery of oxygen and glucose to the brain. It also is possible that drugs could be designed to block the eIF2alpha protein that begins the formation of the protein clumps, known as amyloid plaques.

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Is Your Diet Giving You Alzheimer's Disease?

September 29th, 2008

For the past 20 years, scientists have wondered whether Alzheimer’s Disease might be a neuro-endocrine disorder, like diabetes.

In 2005, Dr. Suzanne de la Monte had a breakthrough.

During her research, she made two discoveries:

the brain makes its own insulin, and

Alzheimer’s disease depletes insulin

Based on these discoveries, Dr. de la Monte went beyond theorizing that there is a connection between Diabetes and Alzheimer’s.

She actually identified the Alzheimer’s Disease process as Type 3 Diabetes.

What Is Type 3 Diabetes?

To understand Type 3 diabetes, you have to understand Types 1 and 2. So, bear with me for a minute while I give you a refresher course on Diabetes.

Type 1 Diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease. An autoimmune disease results when the body’s system for fighting infection (the immune system) turns against a part of the body. In diabetes, the immune system attacks and destroys the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. The pancreas then produces little or no insulin. A person who has type 1 diabetes must take insulin daily to live.

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Type 2 Diabetes

.Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes. About 90 to 95 percent of people with diabetes have type 2. This form of diabetes is most often associated with older age, obesity, family history of diabetes, previous history of gestational diabetes, physical inactivity, and certain ethnicities. About 80 percent of people with type 2 diabetes are overweight.

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Type 3 Diabetes

.Insulin has numerous functions within your body.

The most well known function is that it helps convert food into energy.

What you may not know is that insulin is also active in your brain.

It helps us to learn and to make new memories.

Here’s how it works:

In the spaces across which brain cells communicate (called Synapses) and where memories are conceived, neurons reserve special parking spots just for insulin.

When the hormone pulls in, a connection is made that enables new memories to form.

Since new memory formation is one of the first things to go awry in people with early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease, this insulin-initiated process has been a popular research topic for neuro-scientists for the past 20 years.

In August, a team of scientists at Northwestern University were the first to show why the brain’s “memory function” fails in the face of an insulin shortage.

Earlier research had already identified the culprit: toxic proteins called amyloid beta-derived diffusible ligands (ADDL), which are known to pile up in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s.

Scientists also knew that Alzheimer’s patients’ brains have lower levels of insulin and are insulin resistant.

But what the Northwestern team discovered is the molecular mechanism behind that resistance: when ADDLs bind to neurons at synapses, they obliterate the receptors that are normally reserved for insulin.

Without those parking spaces on the brain cells’ surface, insulin has no place to connect, and memory fails.

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So Where Do The ADDLs Come From?

The ADDLs are a side effect of inflammation in the brain.

So Where Does The Brain Inflammation Come From?

The brain inflammation is a result of high insulin levels.

So Where Do The High Insulin Levels Come From?

High Insulin levels are produced when we eat a diet high in carbohydrates.

More specifically, a diet that consists of meal after meal of high glycemic load foods results in:

high blood sugar,
high insulin levels,
Metabolic Syndrome,
Type 2 Diabetes, and now, thanks to the wonders of science,

Type 3 Diabetes / Alzheimer’s Disease.

And if you don’t believe that high insulin levels are the culprit behind those nasty little ADDLs

The Research

University of Washington researcher Dr. Suzanne Craft and her research team signed up 16 very brave volunteers to test this hypothesis.

These men and women, ranging in age from 55 to 81, let research doctors give them two-hour infusions of both insulin and sugar. This kept their blood sugar at normal levels while creating the same kind of high insulin levels seen in people with insulin resistance.

Insulin resistance is a common symptom of people who eat the typical American diet. Though to be fair, it is not just Americans who eat this way. Like many other cultural contributions, the Golden Arches et al have spread across the globe. Even the French are buying into the American diet.

Back to the study.

The volunteers then let the researchers give them a spinal tap so they could analyze their spinal fluid.

OUCH

Just this brief rise in insulin levels had what Craft calls “striking” effects:

It set off inflammation in the brain.

The spinal fluid had increased levels of a compound called F2-isoprostane. Alzheimer’s patients have unusually high brain levels of F2-isoprostane.

Brain levels of beta-amyloid increased.

Except for the spinal tap, many Americans already are undergoing the same experiment as the study volunteers did. And they are doing it for a lot longer than two hours.

Conclusion

According to Samuel Gandy, MD, PhD. Gandy, chairman of the Alzheimer’s Association’s medical and scientific advisory committee, director of the Farber neuroscience institute at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia and all around good guy:

“I think this reinforces the idea that it’s wise to maintain your brain. Controlling blood sugar and body weight…all those things we know are good for your heart health are also really good at preventing Alzheimer’s disease. So there are more and more reasons not to be slouchy about getting these things under control.”

Craft and colleagues reported their findings in the October issue of Archives of Neurology.