In Feb of this year, 2017, I attended a seminar given by Dr Bredesen from UCLA. He has developed a program that can reverse Cognitive decline AKA Dementia. Most of it was lifestyle changes and a few supplements. The changes he discussed were very similar to another seminar I attended in San Diego for Cancer Prevention. It was all about the amount Inflammation in our bodies.
Who doesn’t want to prevent cancer and prevent dementia? Dr B said the patients he wants to see are the children of the patient with dementia. That would be me bc both my father and his mother passed w Alzheimer’s in their 70’s.
I should get genetic testing for the ApoE4 allele. This is the gene associated with Alzheimer’s. The thought of this provoked a lot anxiety. Do I want to know? Ultimately I decided I did not want to know. I am not sure how it would help me. It could make me feel doomed. Who needs that? Anyway good news is not everyone w the gene gets Alzheimer’s. Better for me to keep hopeful. Only 50% chance of getting the gene from one parent. Even having the bad gene does not mean for certain that I will get Alzheimer’s.
Here are the stats:
- 0 copies (e.g., ApoE3/3 or 2/3) – 9% lifetime risk.
- 1 copy ApoE4 (heterozygous) – 30% lifetime risk (75 million Americans) – maybe me in this category
- 2 copies (homozygous) – 50-90% lifetime risk (7 million Americans)
I decided to take action and just make the lifestyle changes- it has many other benefits: prevent cancer, dementia, diabetes and bonus to lose that middle age belly too.
Life is full of gambles. The unknown certainly keeps it interesting. Like Forest Gump said, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get”
Future blogs, I will share with you the changes I made to my lifestyle and show how doable it is.
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