Who among us does not know someone whose life has been disrupted by dementia in its many forms as we become more and more aware of ailments common to an aging population? Often this is in close family, so the burdens are multiplied in the care and worries regarding the afflicted one. Some forms are manageable and treatable, but the more serious diseases that include Alzheimer's, and less common but equally serious Picks’s Disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, Huntington’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, and Levy Body Disease are thus far non-reversible.
Medical research directed toward treatment and possible reversal of Alzheimer’s has made little progress.
Another view begs the question: What if it were possible through adjustments in life style to prevent Alzheimer’s from ever occurring?
Jean Carper is a seventy-eight year old woman who carries a gene ApoE4 that makes her exceptionally vulnerable to the disease. In recent years she undertook a broad survey of what is being accomplished in the medical profession, life styles of populations where Alzheimer's is rare, and common sense adjustments to personal life styles that help to maintain good health. She vowed that after accumulating a hundred different pieces of information that if applied would individually or cumulatively eliminate the prospect of succumbing to Alzheimer's, or postpone it to when other causes bring an end to life, she would publish them in a book.
100 Simple Things You Can Do To Prevent Alzheimer’s And Age Related Memory Loss is her book, published in 2010 by Little Brown & Company.
Although following all of them might not be practical, anyone bent on conducting a personal preventive war against the disease would find many easy to adopt. All are common sense. A pleasant surprise might be that some are already being followed. What if this were the proper approach to reducing Alzheimer’s to a rarity?
http://jeancarper.com
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