Alzheimer’s disease prevention. Clues from taxi drivers??

 

Alzheimer’s disease prevention

AD, Alzheimer’s disease is progressive disease and can cause a big disruption in life as the brain degenerates, and will eventually kill the affected person, if they don’t die of another cause first.  Focus of this blog is Alzheimer’s disease prevention and the newest findings.

Alzeimer’s is a progressive loss of memory with genetic and environmental factors contributing to its formation.  There are tangles formed in the brain called neurofibrillary tangles and amyloid plaques that are evident in microscopic examination of the brain post-partum, but the true cause of the disease is not fully know by any means, not even close as there has not been any sort of medicinal intervention so far that has had any positive results.

One thing that is known is that memory loss and overall difficulty with recall is one of the first signs, although by itself that is not conclusive of pre-Alzheimer’s.  After decades of this progressive condition symptom become greater and greater to the point where every day function becomes next to impossible.

A large study was done, post-partum, on people of all ages in England and what they found was quite a surprise:  Taxi drivers did not show any sign of Alzheimer’s!  when they looked close they found that their hippocampus, structures deep in the brain involved in memory formation, were larger than other subjects!

Being a taxi driver in London, a notoriously difficult town to navigate, presumably resulted in this enlarged hippocampus, the memory formation structure of the brain, as navigation thru the difficult maze of the city required better memory formation and retention!

When they looked at some more occupations to see if they can find the same correlation with other occupations, only ambulance drivers matched this benefit in reduction in Alzheimer’s formation.  Presumably an occupation that requires lots of spatial relations work on a day to day basis gives this protection.  It’s a very interesting study and brings to fore the old adage of use it or lose it.  Using the brain to learn different tasks, information, languages, skills keep the brain sharp.

I know, it’s a big jump to going from taxi driving and use of hippocampus for memory formation and spatial navigation to using any part of the brain’s specialized structures to enhance better brain function, and therefore sharpness and longevity.  But is it?

Throughout history different cultures and more recently neuroscience has shown that the more active the brain is, whether its learning a new instrument to play, a new language to speak, a new skill of any kind, new information learned, we grown new connections in the brain and gain overall better brain function.

Preventing Alzheimer’s disease is far superior to cure

• Environmental factors:  is you smoke, quit.  If you have more than 2 drinks per week, consider cutting back
• Healthy Diet:  What you eat really matters.  Mediterranean diet is a great example.  It includes fruits and vegetables, high quality proteins from fish and legumes, and whole grains.
• Regular exercise:  Regular exercise brings increased blood flow, increased supply of oxygen, better removal of waste products from the brain.  Resistance training helps to produce nerve growth factor and Brain Derived Neurotropic Factor, both of which are involved in formation of new neurons as well as strengthening connections between brain cells
• Sleep:  We tend to need between 7-9 hrs of sleep per night, more or with less, are not good
• Mental Activity and learning:  learning new information and skills, different activities and working on hobbies will help
• Being social:  When we engage in forming new friends or just hanging out with old friends and overall being social, helps the brain
• Head injuries:  engaging in activities that cause the brain to inflame due to impacts is known to increase risk of AD
• Acupuncture:  this is an acupuncture site, so everything in the world, as far as I am concerned, revolves around acupuncture and the smooth flow of qi.  There is truth to this folks, smooth flow of blood and qi is essential to optimal performance of any organ, and mental exercises really help, whether its mental maps of a city or cross word puzzles.