The Alzheimer's Answer: Reduce Your Risk and Keep Your Brain Healthy

This sobering review of the current research on and recommendations for Alzheimer's argues for identifying and combating risk factors decades before symptoms appear. Like other major conditions affected by obesity, high blood pressure and cholesterol levels, among others, Alzheimer's is growing at a rapidly increasing rate. Neurologist Sabbagh has been involved in many important Alzheimer's research trials and founded the Sun Health Research Institute's Cleo Roberts Center, a facility for studying age-related diseases, located in the geriatric community–dense Sun City area of Phoenix. He explains the mechanisms by which the brain undergoes devastating changes that manifest as Alzheimer's; the differences between age-related memory loss, Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia; and ways to assess genetic liabilities and risk factors from lifestyle choices. Although treatment goals and expectations for those with Alzheimer's are modest, Sabbagh says most risk factors can be offset well before retirement age through diet, physical and mental exercise, brain-specific supplements and, in some cases, medications that lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, manage blood sugar and decrease inflammation. Sabbagh covers such concerns as exposure to toxic substances linked to neurological conditions and suggests many potent weapons to counteract development of brain plaque: omega-3 fatty acids, resveratrol, quercetin, folic acid, huperzine A, green tea and curcumin, among others. A guide to symptoms, diagnosis and treatment will prove helpful to patients and their families, while an overview of new drugs that could halt progression and possibly heal damaged brain cells offers hope for the future. (Feb.)