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Burning 50/November 2015 3
placed in the latter category, along with conditions like Parkinson’s disease. But one new focus in Alzheimer’s research, according to Dr. Hohman, is how episodes of oxygen starvation in tiny blood vessels serving the brain might relate to Alzheimer’s disease, linking the causes of dementia. Research increasingly indicates that the risk factors for one may overlap with those for the other, Schulz says.
4. You can modify some risk factors. The risk factors you can control are known as “lifestyle” factors, like smoking, high cholesterol, and high blood sugar, says Schulz. A large waist circumference is another risk factor, as is sustaining a traumatic brain injury. "Wearing seat belts while driving, and helmets while biking or skiing, are ways to reduce” the risk of such an injury, he says. “If we all lost weight, controlled our blood pressure, lowered blood sugar and blood cholesterol, and did physical and mental exercises, it is thought that the incidence of (Alzheimer’s disease) would drop significantly,” says Schulz, suggesting a decrease in incidence as steep as 50 to 75 percent if people acted on that advice.
5. You can’t modify some risk factors. Aging is a fact of life, and it's also the biggest risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, with a risk that doubles for every 5 years we age, Schulz says. Our genes are also beyond our control, and inheriting a version of the apolipoprotein gene known as ApoE (one of three forms of the gene) means greater risk for onset of Alzheimer’s disease at a young age. Hand-in-hand with genetic risk is a family history of Alzheimer’s.
6. Using aluminum cookware does not cause Alzheimer’s. Schulz notes that many rumors have cropped up regarding risks for, and causes of, Alzheimer’s. One is that using aluminum cookware can cause the disease. It doesn’t, he says.
7. There is no cure. “In the absence of cures for (Alzheimer’s disease), the current best treatment is to prevent Alzheimer’s disease,” says Schulz, adding that modifying risk factors is “a great way to accomplish that.” Hohman notes that a type of molecule called a monoclonal antibody has shown very modest effects in recent research for some people very early in the course of the disease, but overall, the cure picture remains very incomplete.
8. Diagnosing Alzheimer’s can be tricky and expensive. Clinicians can use a PET scan, which can chemically highlight the presence of amyloid in the brain with a radioactive tracer that binds to the protein. But these scans are pricey, Schulz says, and do “not yet fit most people’s budgets.”
9. Blood tests, not brain scans, might be the future of Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Schulz says that blood tests might be on the horizon that could resolve the budget problem. Hohman says that there is a “big push” to identify markers in the blood, including one called plasmalogen, a structural molecule of the brain that some studies show is reduced in people with Alzheimer’s disease. Another candidate is progranulin, which protects against amyloid deposition in mouse models. Many more might be possible. Hohman says that the identification of potential blood test candidates is “moving faster than our ability to figure out what they mean” in some cases.
10. Some ethnic groups need more research attention. One gap in Alzheimer’s research, says Hohman, is the study of genetic factors in populations with different ancestral backgrounds. “On the genetics side, there’s a push to do a better job…of getting a better global picture of how Alzheimer’s risk varies” across these populations, he says.