Doctors: Lifestyle factors are linked to Alzheimer’s

The causes of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia are not completely understood, but researchers believe they include a combination of genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors. In more than 90 percent of people with Alzheimer’s, symptoms do not appear until after age 60. The incidence of the disease increases with age and doubles every five years beyond age 65. Experts now believe the amyloid plaques and the tangles that are hallmark of this disease start occurring in people’s brains 10 to 15 years before any symptoms, such as memory loss, begin to show.

About two-thirds of people with Alzheimer’s are women. One in 6 women will develop Alzheimer’s after 65, while for men, the chances are only 1 in 11. Women in their 60s are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s as they are to develop breast cancer.

The total payments for health care, long-term and hospice care for people with Alzheimer’s and other dementias are estimated to be $290 billion a year. Medicare pays almost half of these costs. The economic impact of the disease would be $1.1 trillion a year by 2030.

The World health Organization estimated in 2015 that the total number of people with Alzheimer’s worldwide will rise to 135.5 million by 2050. By then, global costs will hit $20 trillion.

Despite the billions of dollars spent on research, there is still no cure. Our current therapeutic approach is to slow down the progression of the disease. Unfortunately, many drug trials have failed to show improvement in the last few years and that forces us to think differently and focus on prevention. Until new drugs are developed that could intervene before irreversible brain damage is done, is there anything we can do to prevent this deadly disease?

The answer is yes, according to Drs. Dean and Ayesha Sherzai, who will be speaking at the Food is Medicine seminar on Saturday at the Wagner Noel. They claim that 90 percent of Alzheimer’s cases are preventable through lifestyle factors. Through rigorous clinical studies and research helping thousands of patients, the Sherzais, who are neurologists, researchers and co-directors of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Program at Loma Linda University Medical Center, have uncovered the key lifestyle components contributing to this worldwide epidemic. They’ve also developed a solution: The Alzheimer’s Prevention Program, which could help people avoid developing this terrible disease and even reverse cognitive decline. The human brain is a living universe that responds to what you feed it, how you treat it, when you challenge it and the ways in which you allow it to rest.

--Drs. Dean and Ayesha Sherzai, authors of “The Alzheimer’s Solution.” They will present compelling data that proves that Alzheimer’s is deeply influenced by lifestyle factors such as diet, how often we exercise and the quality of our sleep. They explain in their book, that while it may be easier to blame our genes for this devastating disease, this false belief is killing millions. The truth is much harder to accept: We bring Alzheimer’s disease into our households through the choices we make every day.

--Dr. James Loomis will be addressing plant-based nutrition for optimal performance and optimal health. He is featured in “The Game Changers,” a movie coming out this summer, and was the former team internist for the St. Louis Rams and St. Louis Cardinals.

--Dr. Scott Stoll will discuss the seven pillars of plant-based nutrition and dispel common food myths. He is the author of “Alive!” and co-founder of the Plantrician Project and the International Plant-based Nutrition Healthcare Conference.

--Dr. Michael Greger will discuss the role of diet in preventing, arresting and reversing top 15 causes of death in America. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller “How Not to Die” and founder of nutritionfacts.org.

By Dr. Padmaja Patel is a board member of Healthy City medical director of the Lifestyle Medicine Center.