Without a doubt, there is nothing more painful than watching someone you love wither away from Alzheimer’s disease. I experienced this with my grandfather, and my father. This does not bode well for me from a “genetic standpoint”.

Nothing is more upsetting than discovering that your parent doesn’t recognize you anymore, and can’t remember where he lives — or even tell you the year. These are “early”, “intermediate”, and “late” signs of Alzheimer’s, all of which we will review in my upcoming Focus Health Seminar Series tm. “Avoiding Alzheimer’s”. There is still time to register for this program link , which is taking place on Wednesday January 18th at 7 p.m. Let’s face it, it’s scary to think that one day- your mind might degenerate and leave you mentally crippled for the rest of your life.
But, can you prevent Alzheimer’s disease? Fortunately, the answer is “yes”. There are steps you can take to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s — and ensure that you will maintain healthy mental functioning well into the later years of your life.

Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D. has been President and Medical Director of the Alzheimer’s Research and Prevention Foundation since 1993, and has been studying the disease for two decades. He believes that the best way to defend against Alzheimer’s is to incorporate a series of prevention methods into your life. Dr. Khalsa has developed his “4 Pillars of Prevention” to aid in the process:

Pillar 1: Diet and Vitamins

Keeping your brain healthy and nourished is an important step in preventing Alzheimer’s and memory loss. According to Dr. Khalsa, a good Alzheimer’s disease prevention diet should include the following:

1. 20% “good” fat: omega-3s from extra virgin olive oil, avocado, flax seed oil, and eating fish

2. 50% lean protein: fish, chicken, turkey, and soy. Although those of you who have concerns about “estrogen” need to be careful about your soy intake. Remember soy is a “Phyto-estrogen”

3. 30% complex carbohydrates: fresh vegetables, legumes, fresh fruits, and whole grains. Once again those of you who are patients of mine know that I want you to limit the amount of “inflammatory grains” that you take into your diet.

4. Superfoods for the brain: blueberries, spinach, and seaweed

It is also important to totally eliminate foods which are high in trans-fat and saturated fat. These fats produce free radicals, which in high quantities can damage and even kill brain cells. Antioxidants such as vitamins C and E help eliminate free radicals from your body. Other brain and memory specific nutrients are also important.

The “super-antioxidants” such as “pycnogenol” which is a proanthocyanidin are much more effective in preventing oxidation in the body.

Phosphotidylcholine is a precursor to Acetycholine, which is an important “neurotransmitter” in the brain. This supplement is also an effective treatment for “fatty liver”.

Phosphotidylserine is another supplement which has been researched both in the conventional medical world as well as in the alternative world. It has demonstrated some significant benefits in “double blind” studies.
Supplementation with a high quality omega 3 fish oil supplement like our “Innate Choice Omega Sufficiency” or even our “Organic High Lignin Flax Oil” is a Great way to increase your intake of essential fats, particularly DHA. DHA is a required nutrient for brain function.

B-12 is also a supplement that has been shown to be assistive in warding off the onset of Alzheimer’s. According to Sudha Seshadri, M.D. associate professor of neurology at Boston University of Medicine and a lead researcher in a study on the relationship between B12 and Alzheimer’s: “B12 levels … likely play a contributory role”. This along with a high quality B Complex supplement to balance out your vitamin B intake would be an important recommendation as well. You can order any supplements from our online store, or by calling our office.

Pillar 2: Stress Management

Research has shown that chronic stress is among the biggest factors contributing to the development of Alzheimer’s. When you experience stress, your body produces the hormones cortisol and adrenaline in response to the situation. While your body is capable of dealing with “acute stress” on a short term basis, it is not designed to deal with these stressors on a long term or chronic basis. With chronic stress, your cortisol levels remain high, and this adversely affects your brain.

Cortisol affects the hippocampus, the section of your brain responsible for storing memories. It prevents the hippocampus from getting proper amounts of glucose and it slows nerve impulse transmission, which can kill brain cells. Brain studies of people suffering from late stages of Alzheimer’s disease show that they have a hippocampus that is considerably smaller than that of a normally functioning brain.

By using regular stress relaxation techniques, you can improve your focus, attention, and mental performance. Meditation is an effective method for stress reduction – it helps lower cortisol levels, which will ultimately improve your mental functioning. Other stress management techniques are discussed in my DVD “Stress and How It’s Killing You”.

Pillar 3: Exercise and Brain Aerobics

Of course physical exercise is important. However, neurologists have also found that frequent mental exercise will reduce your risk of developing Alzheimer’s by 70%! It is important that you spend at least 20 minutes, three times a week engaging in some sort of mental exercise. In order for an activity to be considered brain aerobics, it must meet the following criteria:

1. It needs to engage your attention
2. It must involve more than one of your senses
3. It must break up a routine activity in an unexpected, non-trivial way

Examples of mental exercise include visiting a museum and discussing it, reading, writing, playing board games, and so on. I used to use “word find games” with my Dad.

Pillar 4: Pharmaceuticals

There are a few pharmaceutical drugs that may help delay the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease for a short period of time. However, as with all drugs these also have serious side effects. These include dizziness, nausea, and diarrhea. The benefit of these drugs is something that you need to discuss with your or your loved one's doctor.

Some of the drugs used to treat Alzheimer’s disease include Aricept (donepezil), Exelon (rivasigmine), Namenda (memantine), and Razadyne (galantamine).

Fortunately, using the positive and practical strategies that I have presented here will assist you in navigating the tenuous road of Alzheimer’s.

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 The harsh reality of Alzheimer’ Disease:

• 5 million Americans suffer from it according to the National Institutes of Health.
• Symptoms include memory loss and confusion.
• Half a million Americans in their 30s, 40s and 50s have Alzheimer’s or related dementia.
• It’s the seventh leading cause of death.

I don’t have to tell you how incredibly important it is to do everything within our power to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.   And I don’t have to tell you how vital it is that we all give as much money, time, energy, prayers, and efforts to Alzheimer’s research as well as to families who have been affected.

One of the main missions of Out of Bounds is to arm as many people as possible with the knowledge they need in order to prevent dementia, memory loss, Alzheimer’s, depression, anxiety, and a host of other diseases that can be downright horrific.

USA Today recently ran a fascinating article about Alzheimer’s prevention.  When I read the article, I couldn’t help getting excited – it’s always exciting to realize that so many people are throwing their money and brainpower behind the battle against Alzheimer’s.

Research has determined that three things (well within our control) can greatly lessen our chances of getting Alzheimer’s disease:

Exercise
Vitamin D.
Tea

“These are encouraging,” says William Thies, chief medical and scientific officer of the Alzheimer’s Association. “These types of studies make people think, ‘Well gosh, maybe I can do something about this disease.’ “
Exercise to Prevent Dementia and Alzheimer’s

One of the studies is from the Framingham, Mass., cardiovascular risk study, in which researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, among others, tracked more than 1,200 elderly people over 20 years, 242 of whom developed dementia.

The researchers found that participants who had moderate to heavy levels of physical activity had about a 40% lower risk of developing any type of dementia. Those who reported the least amount of activity were 45% more likely to develop dementia compared with those who logged higher levels of activity. -   USA Today
Getting more activity is completely within our control.  It doesn’t matter how long your work days are, how many children you have, how old you are…  Basically you just can’t come up with a good enough excuse NOT to get more activity.

If, however, due to health reasons, you can’t take prolonged walks, exercise on a treadmill, or workout in some other organized manner – you can STILL increase the amount of activity you get each day.

If you watch a fair amount of television, use commercials as your cue to get up and move.  Do the twist, walk around the house, do squats – just move that body and keep it moving for as long as the commercial break lasts.  Do the same thing for each and every commercial break.

When you go to the store, take one or two laps around the entire store before you even put the first thing into your basket.

Even better than working out during commercials, work out during your favorite television show.  March/run in place, do sit ups, lift weights, and so on.  Grab an exercise book or log on to Prevention.com for exercise ideas.

Put the laundry up one item at a time.

Do all of your housework at once – a 30 minute to 60 minute session of housework can be quite a workout!

Needless to say, if at all possible, walk!  Take a nice, relaxing, brain pumping walk every day — use a treadmill when the weather isn’t conducive to an outside walk.

Drink Tea To Prevent Dementia and Alzheimer’s

Perhaps even more within our control than exercise, drinking tea has been found to help in Alzheimer’s prevention.  Great, great news for me – I have multiple cups of tea, usually jasmine green tea everyday.

In a study of more than 4,800 men and women ages 65 and older, participants were followed for up to 14 years. Tea drinkers had less mental decline than non-tea drinkers. Those who drank tea one to four times a week had average annual rates of decline 37% lower than people who didn’t drink tea.  (Source: USA Today)

Tea is full of antioxidants that your body loves – and now, apparently, we learn that our minds love tea as well.  If you’re hooked on diet drinks or soft drinks, start asking yourself (before each sip), “What good is this doing my body or mind, and also is this a food or a product?”  Then ask, “What benefits would drinking tea instead give my body and mind.”  Then order tea!  Remember, that organic is always better. Even Starbucks has “organic chia tea”, not the latea.

Vitamin D for Alzheimer’s Prevention

Finally, we come to another Alzheimer’s and Dementia prevention tip that’s completely within our control:  Getting enough Vitamin D.

British researchers looked at vitamin D’s effect on brain health. They examined data from 3,325 U.S. adults ages 65 and older from the NHANES III study. Vitamin D levels were measured by blood test, and cognitive tests were administered. Odds of cognitive impairment were about 42% higher in those deficient in vitamin D, and 394% higher in people severely deficient.

“Vitamin D is neuro-protective in a number of ways, including the protection of the brain’s blood supply and the clearance of toxins,” says author David Llewellyn of the University of Exeter Peninsula Medical School.
There is actually very little vitamin D found naturally in the foods we eat.  The best food sources of vitamin D are coldwater fish. In many countries, vitamin D is added to milk and other foods, usually “processed foods”.

The best way to get vitamin D is from the sun.

The best source of vitamin D is sunlight. Of course as I have discussed with you in past articles it is necessary that you have sufficient quantities of cholesterol in order to manufacture vitamin D. I have emphasized to you in the past that the overuse of “Statin” (cholesterol lowering drugs) has in my opinion lowered many individuals cholesterol levels to pathologically low levels. In other words they may be lowered to the point that we have insufficient quantities to manufacture sufficient levels of not only vitamin D, but many other “hormones”. As I have also referenced in previous articles our current recommendations which stress sun avoidance and the use and perhaps even the “overuse” of sun blocks may have the unintended effect of increasing the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency.

Severe vitamin D deficiency was common in England in the 1800s due to coal smoke obscuring the sun. During that time, cod liver oil, which is high in vitamin D, became popular as a supplement for children to help prevent rickets. (Rickets is a disease caused by a deficiency of vitamin D in which developing bones soften and curve, particularly in the legs. In this condition an individual isn’t depositing enough calcium in their bones.)

Vitamin D deficiency is known to occur today in the elderly (who often receive little sun exposure) as well as in people who live in northern latitudes and don’t receive any “supplemental” vitamin D. The consequences of this deficiency may be an early onset and rapid progression of Alzheimer’s, but also an  increased risk of hypertension, osteoporosis, and several forms of cancer as I have referenced in the past.

Use common sense when getting enough vitamin D.  Get some sun exposure every day. I’m not suggesting you burn or even simmer your skin – but I am suggesting that you seriously ask yourself if you’re getting enough sunlight and enough vitamin D.

While you’re thinking about it, take a walk around your yard – while, of course, sipping a tall glass of iced jasmine green tea.

As I have taught you in the past supplementing with vitamin D  and is almost a “No Brainer”. Remember as I always I have reminded you in the past, have your vitamin D level tested. It is a simple blood test.

Your brain will love you for it!

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