Early Signs, Possible Factors, and Delaying Alzheimer’s Disease
Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease that the public should pay attention to. Alzheimer’s disease leads to a continuous decline in thinking and memory, along with a decline in behavioral and social skills. After spending multiple days looking at this illness, I believe the public should have more knowledge regarding early signs. Another important topic to share with the public relates to possible factors, such as increased insulin resistance, diet, and lifestyle, that could contribute to earlier signs of Alzheimer’s. The last topic will look at different ways that could potentially delay the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.
Some Early Signs of Alzheimer’s Disease:
- Memory problems: forgetting recent events, conversations, people, etc.
- Trouble finishing familiar daily tasks
- Confusion: time, place
- Beginning problems with words when speaking or writing
Possible Factors Leading to Alzheimer’s Disease:
- Insulin resistance
- Less insulin crossing the Blood-Brain Barrier (BBB)
- Excess body weight, excess belly fat, lack of exercise, and smoking all play a major role in developing insulin resistance
- Increases oxidative stress, cytokines production, neuroinflammation, and neuronal death: play a major role in developing Alzheimer’s Disease
- As noted in the image on the right, brain insulin resistance has been identified in obesity, in normal aging, and in dementia. It is associated with metabolic dysfunctions and with cognitive decline regarding memory.
- Factors like adipose tissue, hormones, nutrition, certain genetic mutations, overnutrition, and age are associated with brain insulin resistance.
- Diet
- Poor eating habits have been shown to impact the disease negatively
- Diabetes (specifically patients that have type 2 diabetes) have a more likely chance of developing Alzheimer’s Disease
- Obesity increases the chance of developing Alzheimer’s Disease
- Lifestyle
- Inactive lifestyles may put individuals more at risk for developing the disease
- Physically and socially
- Inactive lifestyles may put individuals more at risk for developing the disease
Possible Ways to Delay Alzheimer’s Disease
Eating a healthy diet
- Eat foods low in saturated fat, low in cholesterol
- Eat many fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy products
- Eat whole grains, poultry, fish, nuts
- Avoid fats, red meats, sweets, sugar, salt
- Avoiding smoking
- Avoiding excessive alcohol
- Staying physically active
- Staying socially active
- Getting a good amount of sleep regularly
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