As your typical “Type A” college student, I am running through each day of my life at a million miles an hour. I complain about little things like losing my car keys for twenty minutes, forgetting to get milk at the grocery store because I was just there, failing to call my Grandma to wish her happy birthday or the fact that I have to eat pizza for the third night in a row because I have no time to make myself a sensible, healthy meal.
After reading an article in my neurochemistry class this week on Alzheimer’s disease, I thought about what it would be like to not only forget milk at the grocery store but the faces of my loved ones around me, what year it was or how old I was. In addition to thinking about essentially loosing every amazing memory I have had the last twenty years of my life, I thought about how the way I am living my life now affects my chances of getting Alzheimer’s later in life. This thought does not occur to many people, most likely because the onset of Alzheimer’s disease is so late in ones life. The average age of early onset Alzheimer’s is 65 years old. That is 45 years away from where I am at now. But could my eating pizza three nights in a row now increase my chances of getting Alzheimer’s later?
Alzheimer’s in the medical field is often referred to as Type III diabetes. No that is not a typo, DIABETES. This is because insulin, insulin resistance in particular, plays a key role in Alzheimer’s disease. With regards to diabetes most people are familiar with, insulin’s job is to regulate blood sugar levels. Insulin in the brain works to regulate a pathway called the PI3/Akt/mTor pathway, which is the focus of Type III diabetes (aka Alzheimer’s). As with anything in the brain the PI3/Akt/mTOR pathway when not at proper regulation levels can cause a lot of problems. A build up of insulin resistance in the brain can cause this pathway to become hyperactive which leads to the build up of amyloid-β plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. These two big words mean trouble because they are linked extensively to neurons breaking down and eventually dying. As can be inferred, neurons are extremely important in the brain and when they are lost to us, so are our memories and learning abilities.
Okay great, you are probably thinking, what does this have to do with you running a million miles and hour and eating pizza so often at twenty years old Alayna? Well, when a person over consumes food, especially food that is bad for them, insulin resistance starts to build up in the body/brain (sound familiar with regards to Type II diabetes?) and causes the PI3/Akt/mTOR pathway to become hyperactive. Could my eating unhealthy at twenty not only affect my risk of Type II diabetes but Type III diabetes years down the road?
I’d like to think that I get some type of choice in whether or not I end up being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Whether that is just wishful thinking or something completely fathomable I cannot say as a 100% fact, but I do know that eating healthier definitely helps. Taking the time to slow down my day and make healthy decisions in my life now while I still can, can affect my way of life when I am old. Whether it is still having the ability to walk my dog around the block when I am 65 or possibly bypassing the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and keeping all my beautiful memories until the day I die, I would take slowing down my day and eating healthy over my love of pizza and heighted chances of Alzheimer’s disease any day.
After this week I realized more than ever that I need to slow down, not complain about the little things because there is so many more things that could be going wrong with my body, and stop eating so much pizza. Alzheimer’s is a debilitating disease for those that have it as well as their loved ones and I think it is very important to make the public aware of what it actually is and the possible steps that can be taken to potentially decrease their chances of this horrible disease.
But I Really Love Pizza.
