September 27, 2000 – Alzheimer’s disease continues to be an enigma for medicine and all one can do, once the disease is declared and identified, is to slow its progression. But a whole series of recent research is gradually identifying the risk factors for the disease.
It was thus identified that people carrying the Apo e4 gene were more at risk of suffering from Alzheimer’s. However, the good news is that this gene is far from determining that a person will develop the disease. Thus in a study of 6000 healthy people aged 65 and over, all carriers of the Apo e4 gene, more than 70% showed no deterioration of mental faculties during the period of 5 to 7 years during which they were followed. Most importantly, this study showed that people with atherosclerosis and carriers of the susceptibility gene were more than eight times more likely to develop the disease than those without these factors.
Two other studies, one French and the other American, have once again confirmed that hypertension, diabetes, smoking and obesity are factors that increase the risk of suffering from cognitive problems and developing the disease. Alzheimer’s.
High blood pressure, even at a young age, is associated with a decline in mental faculties later on. This is because the disease gradually destroys the artery walls and decreases the flow of oxygen to the brain. At an advanced age, we then observe lesions in the white matter of the brain and small areas of the brain that have died from lack of oxygenation. Diabetes has similar consequences.
The French study, carried out over 4 years with 1,373 people aged 59 to 71, showed that 21% of people with uncontrolled hypertension experienced severe cognitive problems during the period, compared to 7.8 % of people who controlled their hypertension and 7.3% who did not have hypertension.
To complicate and complete the picture of risk factors, an American study of African Americans aged 65 and over showed that those who had less than a sixth year of schooling and had grown up in the countryside were 6 times and half more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than those who had a good education and grew up in the city. The researchers do not claim that their results indicate that the level of education or the lack of intellectual stimulation is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease because many other factors (including environmental factors) may be involved. . However, these results are consistent with several other studies that have shown a clear association between a low level of education and the risk (three to four times higher) of suffering from cognitive problems.
All these studies suggest that healthy lifestyle habits that eliminate the main risk factors (atherosclerosis, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, smoking) and intellectual stimulation can considerably reduce the risk of suffering from cognitive problems in old age. .
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