At the moment, treatments for Alzheimer's are extremely unsatisfactory, but I think
we know a fair amount about prevention of Alzheimer's disease.
For example, it begins as an inflammatory process in the brain so anything that reduces
inflammation is protective and that is why taking ibuprofen everyday reduces risk of
Alzheimer's for example.
That is one strategy as an anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle.
We also know that education is preventive against Alzheimer's disease and dementia and
the reason for that seems to be that education increases what is called neuro redundancy
which is duplicative connections between nerve cells in the brain.
So the more connections you've got the more you can afford to lose before a problem shows
up.
Are there particular types of education that stimulate that?
I think there are and one I'm sure of is changing your computer operating system and if you
can relate to that particular kind of frustration that comes for a few days when you've done
that and you want everything back the same, you want to put your brain in that state frequently,
that is when neurons are growing new connections.
Another way to do in an ongoing basis is to learn another language.
There is very interesting evidence that people who speak more than one language have better
brain function generally and better protection against dementia.
The good news is you do not have to master the language; it's just the attempt to learn
it.
It's like running different software through the brain and that's a good thing to do.
So I think there are a lot of strategies of that sort out there that I think can reduce
the chance that you will end up with Alzheimer's disease or dementia.