Prevent Alzheimer's Naturally it can be possible with changes in lifestyle, diet and practicing certain physical and mental activities. Although it is not possible to avoid it in all cases, such changes always bring an improvement in physical and mental health.
Alzheimer's is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by progressive and irreversible cognitive decline. That is, a person with Alzheimer's will gradually lose their mental faculties, without the ability to stop the progression of the disease and without being able to recover their cognitive functions..
However, certain risk factors associated with Alzheimer's disease have been connoted, so that certain behaviors could combat its development and prevent its appearance.
In this article we will explain what can be done to prevent alzheimer and what aspects could play an important role in its development.
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Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the neurodegenerative pathology par excellence. Its incidence increases with age and its prevalence doubles every 5 years after 65.
In fact, it is estimated that up to 30% of the population over 80 years of age can suffer from this disease. In this way, Alzheimer's is one of the diseases that most affect the elderly population..
In addition, taking into account its devastating effects on the person who suffers from it, it is undoubtedly one of the pathologies that currently has the greatest scientific research efforts..
However, these efforts have not resulted in the discovery of a cure for Alzheimer's, which continues to be an irreversible degenerative disease, so it can be considered "incurable".
What is known quite exactly is the mechanism of action and neurodegeneration of this disease.
In Alzheimer's, there is a progressive degeneration of neurons in the hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, temporal and parietal associative cortex, and magnocellullar nucleus of Meynert, the main source of cholinergic fibers with projections to the cerebral cortex.
This neuronal dysfunction results in neurochemical changes in the concentration and effect of brain neurotransmitters. One of the most affected, acetylcholine, seems to be more involved in the processes of storing new information.
Current existing "specific" treatments are based on this hypothesis, and increase brain cholinergic "tone" by inhibiting acetylcholinesterase.
The most significant pathological findings in the brains of patients with this disease are senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, located mainly in the hippocampus and temporal lobe..
However, these discoveries have not yet been translated into the design of drugs that, through their mechanisms of action, are capable of interrupting the progression of the disease.
Thus, despite having made extensive advances on the mechanism of action of Alzheimer's, nowadays there is still no evidence to show what the origin of this disease is, or what psychotropic drugs could stop its evolution..
From those explained in the previous section, the idea is extracted that today it is globally commended that Alzheimer's is a multifactorial, heterogeneous and irreversible disease.
This means that its development requires the conjunction of genetic and environmental factors. It is contemplated that the basic substrate may be accelerated neuronal aging not counteracted by the normal compensatory mechanisms of the brain..
Likewise, numerous investigations postulate that genetic factors predispose to the suffering of the disease and modulate the age of onset of the clinic.
In this way, while genetics would predispose us to suffer from Alzheimer's, environmental factors would act as facilitators or triggers of the symptoms. Among these risk factors we find:
It is the main risk marker for the disease, so that the prevalence increases as age increases, doubling every 5 years from the age of 60.
Although the data obtained may be due to a greater life expectancy of women compared to men, the prevalence of Alzheimer's is higher in women than in men (2: 1).
This fact would show that being a woman could constitute a risk factor for suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
Mutations of certain genes (PS-1 located on chromosome 14, PS-2 on chromosome 1 and PPA on chromosome 21) inexorably determine the appearance of Alzheimer's disease.
There are also predisposing genetic markers, which would increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease, such as the APOE gene located on chromosome 19 and its alleles e2, e3 and e4.
Between 40 and 50% of patients with Alzheimer's have a family history of dementia.
The role of TBI is controversial when it comes to predicting the onset of Alzheimer's, but what has been shown is that those people who carry the e4 allele of the APOE gene have a higher risk of suffering from Alzhiemer after TBI.
Although Alzheimer's can appear in people with any educational level, an increase has been published among subjects with less education.
In countries where daily calorie intake is low, such as China, there is a lower incidence of Alzheimer's, so a very high calorie intake could be a risk factor for the disease.
Likewise, polyunsaturated fatty acids and antioxidant vitamin supplements (vitamins E and C) have shown a neuroprotective role for Alzheimer's, which indicates that certain types of diet could also be a risk factor for suffering from the disease.
The risk factors discussed above provide us with clues as to what events can increase the probability of suffering from Alzheimer's disease, thus they indicate certain aspects to take into account when preventing it..
Obviously, many of the aforementioned aspects are unpredictable, so they cannot be part of the range of behaviors that can reduce the risk of suffering from Alzheimer's.
In this way, risk factors such as age, sex or genetics, few strategies can provide us when our intention is to prevent the development of the disease.
However, they can provide us with valuable information to identify the people who have a higher risk of suffering from Alzheimer's disease and therefore, they can, in a certain way, indicate who we are more “obliged” to carry out preventive behaviors and who are less so..
But be careful! We must remember that Alzheimer's is a multifactorial disease, heterogeneous and of unknown origin, so the risk factors mentioned are simply that, and do not delimit the development or non-development of the disease.
Therefore, there are currently no strategies, drugs, or infallible exercises that allow us to prevent its occurrence, although they can increase the chances of avoiding it and mental skills always improve..
One of the risk factors for the development of Alzheimer's disease discussed above is the studies.
Despite the fact that this pathology can be witnessed in person with any educational level, a higher prevalence has been noted in people with less education. This fact could be explained through neural plasticity and compensatory mechanisms of the brain.
In this way, the more you exercise your brain through educational and intellectual activities, the more resources you will have to deal with the aging of brain structures..
Alzheimer's is characterized by a degeneration of neurons in the brain, so the more you have worked on these structures during the course of life, the more options you will have not to succumb to this disease in old age.
In the same line of the previous advice, reading appears as a constant habit in the day to day. Reading provides multiple mental benefits, since apart from learning new things, we are exercising our ability to understand, store and memory.
In this way, having a daily habit that allows us to work on these functions can play an even more relevant role than having carried out studies during some time in our lives..
Thus, people who use reading as a distraction, hobby or hobby, perform a greater stimulation of their brain and increase its plasticity and its compensatory potential.
If one thing has become clear through the multiple investigations that have been carried out on Alzheimer's disease, it is that its first manifestation is a reduction in learning capacity and memory loss.
In fact, it has been shown that the first affected brain areas, and therefore, the areas where Alzheimer's disease appears, are the regions where memory functions are performed, specifically the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex..
Therefore, carrying out activities that stimulate and increase the performance of these brain areas can be of vital importance to reduce the risk of suffering from Alzheimer's.
Exercising memory through congitive stimulation exercises is a basic activity both to prevent the development of Alzheimer's and to slow down its evolution when it has already manifested..
It is common to fall into the error of thinking that Alzheimer's is a simple memory dysfunction, but in reality it is not..
Although the inability to learn and the decreased ability to remember are the first symptoms of the disease, Alzheimer's is a pathology that involves many other cognitive deficits.
Thus, through the same principles of neural plasticity discussed above, it is very beneficial for the correct functioning of mental abilities to exercise all cognitive functions..
The calculation, the improvement of language and speech, visual memory, visual construction, the ability to concentrate or the focus of attention are operations that we probably do not perform on a daily basis..
What's more, depending on the professional functions that we develop, as well as the daily activities that we normally carry out, it is likely that some of these cognitive functions are worked very little.
Therefore, to reduce the probability of suffering from Alzheimer's, it is very important that we work our brain function to the full, and we do not leave aside the cognitive functions that we use less in our day to day.
As we have seen previously in the risk factors for Alzheimer's, diet seems to play a role of some importance.
The fact that countries with lower daily calorie intake have a lower incidence of Alzheimer's is indicative that eating a balanced diet may be good practice to prevent the development of the disease.
Similarly, polyunsaturated fatty acids and antioxidant vitamin supplements have been shown to play a neuroprotective role for the development of the disease..
Thus, following a diet that is not excessively caloric, and that is accompanied by antioxidant vitamin supplements (vitamins E and C) and polyunsaturated fatty acids, is a healthy way to prevent the development of Alzheimer's.
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