Prevention of Alzheimer's disease at different ages

Sometimes a retiree suffering from Alzheimer's experiences glimpses of consciousness. At such moments, he realizes the full scale of the disaster, and he may become hysterical because of what a burden he has become for his relatives. Relatives, firstly, do not need to delude themselves that this is a sign of recovery (Alzheimer, unfortunately, cannot be cured). Secondly, there is no need to tell the person about everything that he did and said - this will upset him even more. Thirdly, in this situation, you need to try to reassure the patient, explain that he is not to blame for the current situation and, of course, promise that everything will be fine, and together we will be able to overcome the disease (the patient does not need to know about the seriousness of the diagnosis).

Balanced diet

A properly formulated diet that reduces the likelihood of brain dysfunction and the development of dementia due to Alzheimer's disease will help protect against Alzheimer's.
Few people know about the important role of vitamin K in the prevention of Alzheimer's syndrome and early aging. Unfortunately, this useful element is rarely included in vitamin-mineral complexes, so the only source of its entry into the body is the consumption of certain foods.

To prevent the development of vitamin K deficiency in the body, you should include green leafy vegetables in your diet every day. These include:

• many varieties of cabbage;
• spinach;
• salad;
• celery and other similar plants.

The effectiveness of this vitamin is increased by consuming foods rich in substances with similar properties. By including avocados, tomatoes, mangoes and nuts in your diet, you can provide your body with the necessary amount of vitamin E. Lentils, spinach, greens, asparagus and beets contain a lot of vitamin B9. And eating fish, potatoes, eggs and lean red or white meat every day will help avoid vitamin B12 deficiency.

Regular intake of B vitamins into the body is also important for the prevention of pathology, as it lowers homocysteine ​​levels. This amino acid, accumulating in the body, makes artery walls weaker. Exceeding its norm leads to disturbances in thought processes and memory disorders.

Daily consumption of these foods and fresh juices made from them provides the body with a huge amount of beneficial microelements. Also, many berries contain biologically active substances that protect cells, including brain neurons, from damage, preventing mental impairment.

When combining various components to prepare drinks, it is important to pay attention to the composition and beneficial properties of the products. The following are known to be particularly beneficial in preventing Alzheimer's disease:

• beet;
• blueberry;
• kiwi;
• tomatoes.

Separately, it should be noted the unique properties of red grapes, which contain resveratrol, in the prevention of Alzheimer's. This substance is known for its effectiveness in preventing the development of tumors, inflammatory processes and hyperglycemia. Resveratrol also protects brain tissue from the damaging effects of external factors and reduces the risk of neurological pathologies.

Prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disease in the early stages will be much more effective if you enrich your diet with foods high in polyunsaturated fatty acids. These substances reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer's syndrome, allowing its manifestation to be delayed for up to ten years.

Fish such as tuna, mackerel and salmon contain the most omega-3s. Mediterranean cuisine, which makes extensive use of olive oil, tomatoes, seafood and fish, bell peppers, eggplant and zucchini, also helps to avoid Alzheimer's in old age at a younger age.

Modern medical research proves the connection between diabetes and Alzheimer's disease. The course of the pathology is significantly influenced by the phenomenon of insulin resistance of brain cells. Because of these features, for prevention, you should limit the consumption of sugar, the excess of which increases the risk of developing the syndrome.

Eliminating fatty and spicy foods, flour products and alcoholic beverages also plays an important role in the prevention of Alzheimer's disease. An abundance of junk food leads to the development of vascular pathologies and other diseases that negatively affect the condition of brain tissue.

Try new activities

There are also pitfalls in brain exercises, the main one being that they stop working over time. Ultimately, the same educational games don't make you smarter - they make you more skilled at those educational games. The results don't last long. So, according to Andrea Kuszewski, a consultant physician who studies neurocognitive factors in human behavior, once you master one of these activities in a brain-training game, you need to move on to the next stimulating activity. Do you understand how to play Sudoku? Great! It's time to move on to a different type of game.

A study led by Professor Richard Hyer from the University of California, Irvine, confirms this hypothesis. The scientist gave the Tetris video game to people who had never tried it before. It turned out that after regular training for several weeks, the volunteers experienced an increase in the thickness and activity of the cerebral cortex, and, therefore, the number of nerve connections increased.

These people became real Tetris gurus, and scientists continued their observation. After an initial dramatic cognitive boost, they noticed a decrease in both cortical thickness and the amount of glucose used by the cells during the task. However, the volunteers still played well, their skills did not deteriorate. Brain scans, however, showed a decrease in brain activity during the game compared to previous days.

The thing is that the subjects' brains became more efficient over time: in fact, they understood how to play Tetris, and they became lazy. It was no longer necessary to work as hard to achieve results, and cognitive growth no longer occurred.

Once you reach the peak of mastery in a particular activity, you need to switch to another stimulating activity. so that the brain continues to create new connections and maintain their activity.

That’s why it’s so important to try everything new, from learning languages ​​and learning to play the guitar to attending yoga classes. With each new activity, new neural connections are formed, and this improves cognitive function.

Innovation is also associated with an increase in the release of dopamine in the body, which is not only very motivating, but also stimulates neurogenesis - the division of neurons. Perhaps it is the combination of these effects that is why openness to new things is closely associated with high IQ.

Regular physical activity

Exercise and Alzheimer's prevention are closely linked because they help maintain hippocampal volume. This area of ​​the brain is most affected by the syndrome. Numerous studies have proven that regular exercise helps maintain intelligence and slow down the process of memory loss.

When performing physical activity, the body produces corticotropin-releasing hormone. This substance, which is a stress hormone, in moderate quantities can protect brain cells, preventing mental impairment. Corticotropin-releasing increases the density of synapses connecting neurons, thereby helping a person retain memory.

People unfamiliar with sports should begin prevention by performing simple exercises in the form of:

• race walking;
• cycling;
• dancing;
• swimming

Over time, it is recommended to increase and complicate physical activity, stimulating the functioning of the body's systems.

Young people who do not have serious health problems should turn to running. It has been proven that regularly running 25 kilometers per week can reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer's syndrome by 40%. Yoga and meditation, which help relieve nervous tension, are also excellent disease prevention and prevent the development of atrophic changes in the brain.

Prevention of Alzheimer's disease in old age may include regular walking, the duration of which depends on the person's health. However, you should remember that doctors recommend doing physical exercise at least 3 days a week.

Causes of the disease

Despite the fact that doctors do not know what the true cause of the disease is, there are a number of hypotheses regarding the development of the disease. Reasons include:

• old age (from 60 years);
• hereditary predisposition;
• Down syndrome (this syndrome contributes to the accumulation of “cyanyl plaques” in the brain, which lead to the disease);
• traumatic brain injuries of varying severity;
• diseases of the cardiovascular system of the body;
• eating junk food;
• thyroid diseases;

The presence of one or more of the above factors does not mean the presence of a disease, but only indicates that it is necessary to take a closer look at your health.

Resistance to stress

Constantly being in a state of chronic stress or nervous strain can cause processes that lead to changes in brain tissue. Therefore, if a person is thinking about how to protect himself from Alzheimer’s disease, he needs to first pay attention to his psychological state.

Healthy sleep

Regular sleep deficiency is also stressful for the body. If a person sleeps less than 7-8 hours a day, the production of cortisol (stress hormone) increases, general health worsens, and toxins accumulate in the brain, causing brain damage. Lack of sleep is especially common in students and adolescents, so preventing Alzheimer’s in youth should be based on the development of the correct work and rest regime.

More laughter

Positive emotions prevent the development of many forms of dementia. Laughter is a safe and natural way to relieve psychological stress by stimulating the production of happiness hormones. Their relaxing effect relieves muscle spasms and improves blood flow in the brain, reducing the likelihood of atrophic changes.

Read, count and write

Scientists from Columbia University have proven that older people who regularly read and write by hand are significantly less likely to develop various forms of dementia. For two years, a team of scientists regularly tested a thousand volunteers aged 65–70 years, of whom a third were illiterate. All participants performed tasks on memory, visuospatial perception, and language proficiency.

It turned out that insufficient education and associated undeveloped reading and writing skills increase the likelihood of senile dementia. Scientists have concluded that the skills developed during study train the brain throughout life, increasing its resistance to degeneration. It has also been proven that calculations promote active brain activity: you need to count without a calculator and preferably out loud!

Brain training

With Alzheimer's pathology, a person's intellectual abilities are damaged, memory and spatial orientation problems appear, and even a person's personality changes. To maintain a “sound mind”, you need to constantly train your thinking. It has been scientifically proven that in people whose work involves mental activity, Alzheimer's syndrome is detected much less frequently.

Dementia develops infrequently in people who speak multiple languages ​​and appears later than in other people with the disease. Learning foreign languages ​​activates thought processes and memory, forming new connections between brain neurons. In addition, such an activity contributes to a person’s cultural education and opens access to new information.

You should get yourself some kind of hobby that requires active mental activity. Playing chess, participating in group sports, as well as golf and tennis help keep the brain toned. Reading books, playing music and writing also play an important role in preventing the decline of a person's intelligence.

Prevention of Alzheimer's disease, carried out in this way, will not burden the person at all, but will only bring pleasure and relieve stress. Therefore, such methods of preventing the development of pathology can and should be used by people regardless of age.

Go shopping or find something else to do

We usually associate high busyness with something negative - people are used to complaining about a busy schedule. However, American scientists have found that actively working people have higher mental abilities, regardless of age - even people 50-89 years old who participated in the study showed better information processing speed, memory, logical thinking and reasoning skills - if they were actively working.

In general, the positive effect of employment is associated with the fact that activity is better for health than passivity. In old age, when people usually retire and have significantly less to do, even going to the grocery store can be useful.

A Taiwanese study of 2,000 men and women over the age of 65 found that those who shop independently increased their chances of longevity by 28%. With such activities you can kill three important “birds with one stone” at once: increase the level of social interaction, create some kind of physical activity for yourself and prevent your memory from weakening.

Drugs for the prevention of Alzheimer's pathology

These medications improve thinking processes and memory, and also stimulate blood flow to brain cells, providing them with nutrients and oxygen.
Drug prevention of Alzheimer's disease

Medicines for the prevention of Alzheimer's, which prevent the development of the disease, are prescribed mainly only to people at risk of developing the pathology. Their use should be carried out strictly under the supervision of the attending physician.

Scientific research is constantly being conducted to find new medications for the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's syndrome. The result of one of them was the discovery of the effectiveness of the antiviral drug Acyclovir, used to treat herpes virus infection, in the fight against Alzheimer's pathology.

Studies have shown that the drug reduces the accumulation of a protein in cells that causes brain damage. Thus, when taking the drug Acyclovir, the prevention of Alzheimer's becomes more effective. However, the effect of the drug is still being studied, so a 100% guarantee of its benefit in the fight against pathology cannot be given.

Communicate

Socializing with people is not only a way to relax between activities, but also, as research shows, a means of improving cognitive function. It requires our attention, working memory, assessment of situations and the actions of other people.

Scientists from the universities of Michigan, California and Colorado recently published their research showing that even short, ten-minute intervals of social interaction can improve overall cognitive function.

According to the American Association of Retired Persons, social interaction is important as you age to maintain good mental health, memory, and prevent dementia and Alzheimer's disease.