Alzheimer's disease is progressive, yet irreversible chronic degenerative disease which symptoms tend to progress over time. Its God father is the famous German physician Alois Alzheimer, who first described the disease in 1906. It is also known under the term “senile dementia” and it is the most common degenerative disease of the advanced age. (Source, Wiki)
Language problems combined with mild or advanced memory impairment, decision-making, judgment, and personality are the classical symptoms of the disease. Alzheimer’s symptoms progress rather quickly, despite its appearance and progression of symptoms varies from one person to the other. With its progression physical problems may include loss of strength and balance, problems with the speech, breathing and swallowing, diminishing bladder and bowel control resulting eventually in terminal decline and death.
One of the leading risk factors for Alzheimer is the advanced age. As usual people above 65 may suffer progressively of this disease. Generally, both sexes are equally vulnerable to the disease with light prevalence of women. The disease may develop as a result of a variety of other factors, as for example the amount of stress during once life, serious head injury, level of elevated aluminum toxicity and many others.
Alzheimer’s disease is believed to be the missing piece in the metabolic syndrome puzzle( insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, abdominal obesity and unbalanced blood sugar). It is frequently if not always following diseases as obesity, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes. Thus, Alzheimer is also named -type 3 Diabetes. (Source, The NY Academy of Sciences)
A mega-study published in Neurology (2008), suggests that dementia may also be more common among patients with abdominal obesity, comparatively with non obese individuals. More than 6,500 patients took part in this study for a period between 1964–1973y. They all had their abdominal diameters measured, and were then followed, for another 36 years. In addition to the incidence of dementia, there were considered other factors as: gender, age, ethnic background, level of education, marital status, and the presence of absence of diabetes, hypertension, dylipidemia, stroke, and heart disease. (Whitmeret al., 2008)
Out of all 6,600 evaluated patients, 1,049 (16 %) were ultimately diagnosed with dementia. When these patients were further analyzed, it was determined that they all had greatest abdominal diameter and nearly three times the risk of developing dementia, when compared to patients with the smallest abdominal diameter. The researchers concluded that despite both diabetes and hypertension increase the risk of dementia, abdominal obesity by itself is the main significant risk factor for dementia. Hence, metabolic syndrome is a significant predictor for dementia appearance in advanced age.
Aging alone leads to loss of efficiency of the insulin pathways and its recognition from the reduced number of mitochondria in the human body. You may already know that insulin resistance appears or increases with advanced age. Scientists have so far identified one gene that increases the risk of Alzheimer’s but does not guarantee an individual will develop the disorder. Due to natural aging and improper diet and lifestyle, the pancreatic function is unable to cope with the chronic problems and its function slowly but gradually diminishes. Men who develop diabetes in mid-life appear to significantly increase their risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, according to a long-term study done in Sweden (Rönnemaa et al., 2008).
The study involves 2,269 men (50y old) diagnosed with abnormal insulin levels. During 32 years of average, 102 of them developed Alzheimer’s disease, 57-vascular dementia, and 235 other type of cognitive impairment. The results in this study are showing an increased number of people developing diabetes show tendency to develop Alzheimer’s disease later on in life (one and a half times more likely) than people with normal blood insulin values. The authors show an obvious parallel link between insulin resistance and obesity, diabetes, hypertonia, and Alzheimer disease can be the new chapter of metabolic syndrome cluster of abnormalities, what may soon name the syndrome- “The Deadly Quintet” (Sawyer, 2009).
Unfortunately, in modern medicine there is no single study or clinical test that can be used to diagnose the disease early in life. A comprehensive patient evaluation includes a complete health history, physical examination, neurological and mental status assessments, and other tests, including blood and urine analysis, EKG or an imaging exam, such as CT or MRI.
Despite no successful conventional treatment is yet available to fully cope with the Alzheimer's disease, there are several nutraceutical formulas and pharmaceutical drugs that may help delay the progression of symptoms associated with Alzheimer's disease. There also drugs that may help control behavioral symptoms, such as sleeplessness, agitation, wandering, anxiety, and depression. Treating these behavioral symptoms often alleviates the symptoms and makes their care easier.
Reference:
Whitmer, R.A, Gustafson, D.R., Barrett-Connor, E., Haan, M.N., Gunderson, E.P., and Yaffe, K. Central obesity and increased risk of dementia more than three decades later. Neurology. 2008., Sep 30;71(14):1057-64. Epub 2008 Mar 26.
Rönnemaa, E., Zethelius, B., Sundelöf, J., Sundström, J.,Degerman-Gunnarsson, M., Berne, C, Lannfelt, L.,and Kilander, L.. Impaired insulin secretion increases the risk of Alzheimer disease. Neurology. 2008, Sept.30, 71 (14) 1065-71
Note * For more information on obesity, diets, metabolic syndrome and weight loss just click on the "Subscribe" button located on the top of this page, in order to receive the Milwaukee Diets Examiner and Metabolic Syndrome Examiner articles. Copyright @2010 Dr. Antoaneta Sawyer; All rights reserved
Comments