Bad habits can trigger Alzheimer’s, and bring on disease sooner
Heavy drinking, smoking, junk food and resulting high cholesterol can lead to Alzheimer’s disease and in some cases bring it on much sooner than otherwise.
Separate research presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s annual meeting found that heavy drinkers and smokers develop Alzheimer’s up to eight years sooner than those with healthy lifestyles, while people who develop high cholesterol from a junk food diet in middle age are one and a half times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s.
One of the studies found that heavy drinkers (more than two alcoholic drinks a day) developed Alzheimer’s nearly five years earlier on average than non-heavy drinkers.
Those who smoked at least 20 cigarettes a day developed the disease 2.3 years sooner than patients who smoked less or did not smoke.
Also, study participants with a particular mutant form of the gene ApoE showed symptoms of Alzheimer’s three years earlier than those without the gene variant.
When these three risk factors were combined, research scientists found that Alzheimer’s had a considerably earlier onset, with patients with all three developing Alzheimer’s 8.5 years sooner than those with none of the three.
“These results are significant because it’s possible that if we can reduce or eliminate heavy smoking and drinking, we could substantially delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease for people and reduce the number of people who have Alzheimer’s at any point in time,” said Dr. Ranjan Duara, of the Wien Centre for Alzheimer’s Disease at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, Florida.
In the second study presented to the nation’s assembled neurologists, a team of Finnish and US scientists announced results linking high cholesterol and Alzheimer’s.
“High mid-life cholesterol increased the risk of Alzheimer’s disease regardless of diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, smoking and late-life stroke,” said Dr Alina Solomon, from the University of Kuopio in Finland, who led the research. “Our findings show it would be best for both physicians and patients to attack high cholesterol levels in their 40s to reduce the risk of dementia.”
