Women at the Epicenter of Alzheimer’s Epidemic, According to Latest Alzheimer’s Association Report

The Alzheimer’s Association released their annual Disease Facts and Figures report this week and along with the latest national statistics, the report also paid special attention to the gender disparities that exist concerning the Alzheimer’s epidemic.  The report states that “almost two-thirds of Americans with Alzheimer’s disease are women.” Just as startling, the report states that “women are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease as breast cancer.” Along with the reasoning that women outlive men, other possible explanations include “differences in brain structure,” and “different hormonal physiology.” However, these explanations are not supported by scientific evidence making it difficult to definitively justify the difference.

In addition to analyzing gender difference in the prevalence and incidence of Alzheimer’s, the report also studied differences in informal caregiving between men and women.  Not surprisingly, more than 60% of dementia caregivers are women, with the actual number possibly higher due to underreporting.  The study found that women were more likely to assume the role of a caregiver, but that caregiving burden differed between those women who felt obligated to be a caregiver versus women who willingly chose to be a caregiver.  However, in general, women shouldered more of the burden and stress compared with men. Unfortunately, the report also indicated that women were “less likely than men to receive outside help for caregiving,” which often led to worse negative health outcomes.

The report concludes that Alzheimer’s clearly affects women more strongly than men in terms of both developing the disease, and caring for a loved one with the disease. The stress associated with either can then complicate and lead to further issues such as marital problems, lost employment, strained relationships and depression.

Read the full report here.

Speaking Two Languages Deters Dementia by Nearly 5 Years, Scotland Study Shows

By Pat Rarus

¿como estás?
comment allez-vous?
wie geht es dir?
kamusta ka?

If you can speak just one other language besides English, your chances of delaying or perhaps never getting dementia are greatly enhanced. Those are the results of a recent study by the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. As a plus, it doesn’t even matter how fluent you are or how authentic your accent is.

Tracy Miller, a reporter for the New York Daily News, wrote about the Scottish study last November. From the article:

“Those who speak more than one language may enjoy built-in protection against the devastating effects of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study.
People who were bilingual or multilingual developed dementia an average of 4.5 years later than those who spoke only one language, researchers wrote in the journal Neurology.

Dementia refers to symptoms such as memory and attention loss, communication difficulty, and decreased visual perception that result from damage to brain cells. Alzheimer’s, the most common type of dementia, is the fifth leading cause of death for Americans over 65 and is thought to affect 5.2 million people.

This study is the largest to examine the effects of bilingualism on dementia and the first to demonstrate the effects not just for Alzheimer’s but other types of dementia, including vascular and frontotemporal, study author Dr. Thomas Bak of Scotland’s University of Edinburgh told the Daily News.”

The abstract of the study is available here.

Monica Garcia, 57, an Oceanside counselor, learned to speak Spanish in her early 20s out of necessity. Monica, whose maiden name is Voge, married her husband, Victor—a Mexican native—back in 1977. Although Victor learned English as a teenager, his brothers and sisters could only speak Spanish. When various relatives came to live with Monica and Victor—some for a few months; others for a couple of years−Monica needed to communicate with them in their native language. That’s how she learned Spanish.

“I took it in high school for three years,” she recalled, “but then I never used it. In school you learn a lot about Spanish grammar, tenses and other formal parts of the language. When the relatives lived with us, though, I learned phrases the natural way, like the way children learn a language—by osmosis. Of course,” she added, “Victor helped a lot as well.” In addition, Monica watched Spanish-language TV shows and movies.

Today, she is as fluent as a Mexican national and her memory skills are formidable —in both English and Spanish. Monica recently took a memory test that ranked her in the 88^th percentile of people in her age group. Even more impressive are her scholastic achievements. At age 53, she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude from California State University San Marcos. “All that studying really involved a lot of memory work,” she said with a smile.

Disappointing Results from Alzheimer’s Drug Trial

By Hailey Chung

The L.A. times reported the findings from a clinical trial first published in the New England Journal of Medicine concerning two bioengineered medications – solanezumab and bapineuzumab. Both therapies were designed to “bind to beta-amyloid deposits in the brain and promote their removal.” Both medications proved promising in early animal studies, but subsequent clinical trials in patients with mild to moderate forms of the disease produced substandard results.

However, Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical corporation developing solanezumab, is still optimistic.

From the article:

“The company has launched a new and larger trial of the therapy, but shifted its focus to people newly diagnosed with mild Alzheimer’s. In dissecting the data yielded by the trial published Wednesday, Lilly found evidence that subjects whose Alzheimer’s symptoms were just becoming evident may have benefited from solanezumab. The pharmaceutical giant hopes that a larger trial of those with the early stages of the disease will bear that hope out.

Dr. Paul Aisen, a UC San Diego Alzheimer’s researcher who was a co-author of the study on solanezumab, said that while the results of both studies were disappointing, they did shed some light on what it will take to change the course of Alzheimer’s in patients.”

It is important to remember that while these results proved disappointing, there are still lessons to be learned regarding what future medications should target and when they should be taken. Researchers and experts on Alzheimer’s seem to agree that new medications are at least taking the correct approach by targeting the amyloid plaques before the disease fully established itself in the brain. Trials like these seem to illustrate that prevention or at least early interventions may be the most effective since the disease most likely originates in the brain long before a person begins showing symptoms. So while the results from these tests are disappointing, they should not be discouraging as these trials represent just another stepping stone in the continued fight against Alzheimer’s.

Read the article here.

Exercise Reduces Risk of Dementia, British Study Shows

By Pat Rarus
What is good for the heart is also good for the head. Numerous studies have shown that aerobic exercise, such as walking or jogging, prevents heart attacks. Similarly, exercise – apparently of any type—is linked to mental health. That’s the conclusion of a 35-year investigation carried out by researchers at Cardiff University School of Medicine in the United Kingdom. A December 10, 2013, article on the BBC News website details the results of the comprehensive study.

From the article:
Taking regular exercise is the most effective single lifestyle choice people can make to reduce their risk of dementia, according to one of the most extensive studies yet into people’s long-term health outcomes.

The 35-year investigation, carried out by researchers at Cardiff University, found that consistently following just four out of five key behaviours could reduce dementia risk by 60 per cent, while also cutting the chance of heart disease and stroke by 70 per cent.

Of the five behaviours – exercise, not smoking, having a low bodyweight, a healthy diet and low alcohol intake – exercise was found to be the most effective at improving long-term physical and mental health.

Although the five factors will be familiar to almost everyone, researchers said they were “really amazed” by quite how beneficial they had proved to be.
“What the research shows is that following a healthy lifestyle confers surprisingly large benefits to health,” said principle investigator Professor Peter Elwood of Cardiff University’s School of Medicine. “Healthy behaviours have a far more beneficial effect than any medical treatment or preventative procedure.”

Professor Elwood said that, unfortunately, the evidence from the study was that very few men actually follow the kind of healthy lifestyle that can prove so beneficial, and that, while smoking rates had gone down since the study began, the number of people living completely healthily had remained unchanged.

Richard Rettig, an active Oceanside man, who admits to being “over the age of 80,” walks on the beach for at least half-an-hour from three to seven days a week. Richard’s memory is excellent, and his engaging lifestyle proves it. After retiring from a stellar career in government service, public relations and other professional endeavors, the Harvard alumnus is involved in a variety of activities. For his alma mater, Richard interviews teenage applicants for the Harvard Club of San Diego. “There is nothing like talking to 17-year-olds to keep you mentally alert,” he said with a grin.

One year ago, Richard started a blog, Organic Food Worldwide, and has posted more than 100 entries to date. His goal is to raise $1 million to fund an online organic food network.

In addition to blogging about the benefits of organic food, Richard is extolling the benefits of joining Toastmasters International, a worldwide non-profit communications and leadership organization. Richard currently serves as the District 5 Public Relations Officer.

Promoting Toastmasters throughout San Diego County requires an active mental and physical regime. Richard attends numerous meetings – some as far away as El Cajon, more than a 100-mile roundtrip from Oceanside. Fortunately, he is in great shape to handle all the activity. “January was really a busy month for me,” Richard recalled, as he prepared for yet another walk on the beach.

Delaying Retirement Might Prevent Alzheimer's and other Types of Dementia

By Pat Rarus

Financial planners often tout the importance of delaying retirement for financial gain. More vital than capital, however, is one’s mental and physical health. These priceless assets transcend a high net worth and the upscale lifestyle it supports.

USA Today cited research from France last year involving nearly half a million people− the largest study to date to analyze work and mental health.  Associated Press writers Marilynn Marchione and Lindsey Tanner wrote the article in July 2013.

From the article:

 Working tends to keep people physically active, socially connected and mentally challenged — all things known to help prevent mental decline.

"For each additional year of work, the risk of getting dementia is reduced by 3.2%," said Carole Dufouil, a scientist at INSERM, the French government's health research agency. She led the study and gave results at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Boston on Monday.

About 35 million people worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer's is the most common type. In the U.S., about 5 million have Alzheimer's — 1 in 9 people aged 65 and over. What causes the mind-robbing disease isn't known and there is no cure or any treatments that slow its progression.

France has had some of the best Alzheimer's research in the world, partly because its former president, Nicolas Sarkozy, made it a priority. The country also has detailed health records on self-employed people who pay into a Medicare-like health system.

Researchers used these records on more than 429,000 workers, most of whom were shopkeepers or craftsmen such as bakers and woodworkers. They were 74 on average and had been retired for an average of 12 years.

Nearly 3% had developed dementia but the risk of this was lower for each year of age at retirement. Someone who retired at 65 had about a 15% lower risk of developing dementia compared to someone retiring at 60, after other factors that affect those odds were taken into account, Dufouil said.

To rule out the possibility that mental decline may have led people to retire earlier, researchers did analyses that eliminated people who developed dementia within 5 years of retirement, and within 10 years of it.

"The trend is exactly the same," suggesting that work was having an effect on cognition, not the other way around, Dufouil said.

France mandates retirement in various jobs — civil servants must retire by 65, she said. The new study suggests "people should work as long as they want" because it may have health benefits, she said.

You can read the article here

 

Peggy Sigler, 87, a longtime San Diego (Point Loma) resident, worked about 50 hours a week at a start-up company until age 70. After retiring from her paid position, Peggy volunteered for a variety of causes. Currently, she serves as president of the GA Retirees Organization.

Recently, Peggy− a lifelong expert at planning special events− volunteered to help with an event to honor San Diego teachers aboard the Maritime Museum of San Diego. http://www.sdmaritime.org/

“Working in either a paid or voluntary position keeps your mind active and engaged,” Peggy said, as she prepared for yet another meeting. “I love being busy and helping others.”