Alzheimer’s Disease

Can Alzheimer’s Disease Be Prevented?

The Chiro.Org Blog

SOURCE:   Medscape Medical News ~ June 24, 2013

Bret S. Stetka, MD

Reporting from The American Psychiatric Association’s 2013 Annual Meeting

Introduction

“Do we have any control over our brain health as we age?”, Dr. Gary Small asked the crowd, a packed room of psychiatrists attending his “Brain Health and Alzheimer’s Prevention” talk at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in San Francisco, California. [1]Nearly everyone raised their hands. “If the answer is yes,” he followed, “then what can we do to forestall the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease (AD)?” For the next hour, conference-goers found out or, perhaps, given their line of work, brushed up.

Dr. Small is Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the UCLA Longevity Center at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience & Human Behavior. As session chair Dr. Brent Forester pointed out in his introduction, Small’s list of achievements is humbling: renowned clinician, cutting-edge researcher, author of over 400 scientific publications and 7 popular books, including his latest, The Alzheimer’s Prevention Program. His research has contributed to brain imaging methods capable of detecting AD years before symptoms are present; his healthy lifestyle and memory training programs are widely used throughout the United States. In 2002, Scientific American Magazine named Small one of the world’s top innovators in science and technology.

Up went an image of Madame Jeanne Calment, a French supercentenarian who lived to 122 years. “At 94, Calment sold her apartment to a businessman who agreed to pay her rent for the rest of her life. He died 10 years later,” said Small to the chuckling crowd. He was introducing the idea that certain lifestyles are associated with both longevity and brain health, a term encompassing our various neurologic faculties like memory, thinking, reasoning, mood, and stress responses. There are certain regions in the world — so-called “blue zones” — with abnormally high clusters of centenarians, most notably Sardinia, Italy; Loma Linda, California; and Okinawa, Japan. These regions share a number of characteristics thought to contribute to collective longevity and prolonged brain health on which Small would later expand: Namely, their inhabitants tend to be physically active, socially engaged, and eat a healthy diet high in omega-3 fats, just like the fish-heavy fare most likely enjoyed by Ms. Calment in the south of France.

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