If You Can’t Beat Alzhemier’s, Can You at Least Delay It?

In Alzheimer’s Spurs the Fearful to Change Their Lives to Delay It, Washington Post writer Fredrick Kunklen details various ways that individuals and groups are working to buy more time from genetic profiles or family histories that suggest a greater likelihood of dementia: 

When Jamie Tyrone found out that she carries a gene that gives her a 91 percent chance of developing Alzheimer’s disease beginning around age 65, she sank into a depression so deep that at times she wanted to end her life.

 

Then she decided to fight back. She exercised. She changed her diet. She began taking nutritional supplements, including fish oil, vitamin D, vitamin B12, curcumin, turmeric and an antioxidant called CoQ10. She started meditating and working mind-bending puzzles, such as Brain HQ. She joined a health clinic whose regimen is shaped by a UCLA medical study on lifestyle changes that can reverse memory loss in people with symptoms of dementia. She started a nonprofit group, Beating Alzheimer’s By Embracing Science (BABES), to raise money and awareness about dementia.

 

“I found my voice,” said Tyrone, 54, a registered nurse who lives in San Diego.

Here is the link to “BABES” for those who want to read more about that group.