alzheimer’s explosion

Have you ever wondered why there’s so much Alzheimer’s Disease here in America?  Sure didn’t seem to be that way when I was younger.  In fact, I’m not sure I heard the term used until I got into college.  Now the problem is totally out of control.  Don’t believe me?  Check out these latest statistics on Alzheimer’s Disease from alz dot org. 

• Over five million Americans currently have visible Alzheimer’s.

• Alzheimer’s is our nation’s sixth leading cause of death, and one in three dies with the disease.

• It is estimated that over 15 million caregivers provide nearly 18 billion hours of unpaid care valued at over $215 billion for their loved ones.

• The financial cost of Alzheimer’s was over $200 billion in 2013.  Within 35 years, that number is expected to go up six times (calculated in today’s dollars).

• In a decade, the number of people with Alzheimer’s is expected to rise by 40%.

• The death rate from Alzheimer’s increased nearly 70% in the decade of the 2000’s (2000 – 2010).

• Medicaid costs per-person for senior citizens with Alzheimer’s are almost 20 times higher than the cost of taking care of non-Alzheimer’s seniors.

• Usually, the first thing that others notice in a friend or loved one with Alzheimer’s Disease is a change in behavior.

Statistics like this beg the question of why.  Why has this disease exploded into our every-day lives in recent decades?  Just as we do with diseases such as AUTISM; as a nation we tend to spend too much time playing ostrich and ignoring the evidence.  It’s easier to try and deal with health problems via DRUGS or VACCINES, or to blame faulty GENETICS, than it is to admit that we need to be shouldering much of the blame ourselves.  We are always told to trust Big-Pharma and their publicly-funded research machine.  They always come up with a solution and save the day.   If you are putting your trust in Big-Pharma, the day is likely coming when you won’t remember how to dress or bathe yourself.

The truth is, it’s high time to stop trusting in EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE and realize that by and large, your health is up to you.   In the same way that we know what causes most cases of Lung Cancer, we have a pretty good idea of what causes the majority of Alzheimer’s Disease as well.  Oh; I see.  Your doctor never mentioned any of this to you.  That’s a shame.  Let me share with you what I believe are the top five reasons for or nation’s Alzheimer’s Epidemic.

• BLOOD SUGAR DYSREGULATION:  When we talk about Blood Sugar Dysregulation, we are usually talking about a situation where the body is INSULIN RESISTANT.  However, we could be discussing HYPOGLYCEMIA as well.  You see; we Americans love our sugar and starch (HERE), and too few of us realize just HOW HARMFUL UNREGULATED BLOOD SUGAR can be — to brain function.   In case you had not heard, the “Amyloid Brain Plaques” that are so characteristic of Alzheimer’s Disease, have a known cause — the inability to regulate blood sugar.  It’s not like this is news, as I have written about it at length in several of the links in this bullet point.  But I will leave you with a quip from a recent study done at Tulane University and published in a recent issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.  “High blood-sugar levels, such as those linked with Type 2 diabetes, make beta amyloid protein associated with Alzheimer’s disease dramatically more toxic to cells lining blood vessels in the brain“.  The truth is that Alzheimer’s is now being called TYPE III DIABETES!

 

• GLUTEN SENSITIVITY:  Although most people associate GLUTEN SENSITIVITY with things like bloating, gas, and IBS-LIKE symptoms, this is not really the case — or at least it’s not the whole story the majority of the time.  If you want to understand the ways that Gluten rips the guts out of your Nervous System, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE are some posts for you to start with.  Make sure to check out the video clip below from Dr. David Perlmutter’s interview with Dr. Joe Mercola in anticipation of his upcoming 90 minute PBS special Brain Change (it starts today).  Dr. Perlmutter wrote Grain Brain: The surprising truth about wheat, carbs, and sugar; your brain’s silent killers, which became a New York Times number one bestseller back in November.

• LACK OF EXERCISE:  In case you have not figured it out, poor diet and lack of exercise are tied to almost every physical ailment there is.  The brain needs activation in order to work properly.  In other words, it’s motor side needs to be stimulated (this is why sitting in front of a screen does not count).  The greatest source of motor stimulation of the brain comes from physical activity and coordinated movement.  Be aware that complex movments or movements that involve a lot of brain power (ball exercises or square dancing) are going to be much better than something like RUNNING (unless you are running somewhere like on a mountain trail).  In other words, the old cliche is just as true today as it was a century ago.  Move it or lose it.  HERE is a blog post on this very topic.

 

• REGULAR FLU SHOTS:  My personal opinion (based on lots of scientific research and anecdotal evidence) is that it’s crazy the way folks line up each year for their FLU SHOTS, in similar fashion to the manner in which teenyboppers line up for a Justin Beaver concert.  One of America’s most-published researchers, DR. HUGH FUDENBERG (M.D. / Ph.D / Immunogeneticist) did the research showing that if you had five consecutive years of Flu Shots, your chance of developing Alzheimer’s went up by almost 10 times — mostly because of Aluminum and MERCURY TOXICITY.  He published this research back in the 1970’s.  Rest assured that when an elite research scientist such as Fudenberg publishes findings like this, he is not sainted, knighted, nor given a raise.

 

• CHEMICAL TOXICITY:  This could come in the form of certain heavy metals like from the bullet point above. Or it could come from a whole host of other chemicals we are continually exposed to.  According to Mississippi neurosurgeon, Dr. Russell Blaylock, one such example of this phenomenon comes in the form of “Excitotoxins” such as MSG or ASPARTAME. But this problem goes far beyond what we may have previously imagined.  Just today, a new study was released in JAMA Neurology touting the old pesticide DDT (it’s still used in many parts of the world, and once it’s in the environment, it does not break down), as a major player in developing Alzheimer’s Disease.  The researchers found that not only did those with Alzheimer’s had an 80% chance of having significant levels of DDT in their system, they also had over four times the amount of DDT in their bodies as compared to non-Alzheimer’s persons of similar age and background.

If you are concerned about your ability to know what day of the week it is, what you had for breakfast, or whether or not you will recognize your children or spouse as you get older, don’t wait until tomorrow to take this post to heart.  Instead of letting doctors do all of your health care to you, figure out what you can do for yourself and git-er-done!   Start by learning about what constitutes a healthy diet (HERE and HERE).  Next, you can LOSE SOME WEIGHT and start a simple EXERCISE PROGRAM.  If you are really serious about this issue, you can take a few minutes to learn about the things that RELATE MOST DISEASE PROCESSES to each other.