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10 Steps to Avoid Dementia

When I read an article called "10 Steps to Avoid Alzheimer's" I thought two things: One, just do these ten steps (coming right up) to avoid pretty much all of the age related diseases and two, don't these people know that Alzheimer's is just one of probably 12 or 13 different kinds of dementias of which Alzheimer's is just one? I don't know why it annoys me, but the word Alzheimer's seems to have become not only the scariest booga-booga word of the decade but the misnomer umbrella word for many kinds of dementia. So here are "10 Steps to Avoid Dementia (and many age-related diseases)"

1. Add more fruits and vegetables to your diet. Duh. I don't think I have to go on too much about this hit you in the face tip. This is how I do it, though, in case you are interested: I have a smoothie every day with berries or other fruit and I also have a huge and varied salad every day. These two habits pretty much satisfy tip #1.
2. Give your lifestyle an upgrade by avoiding tobacco, excess alcohol, exercising, and not being too heavy. These tips are aimed at primarily keep your heart healthy but here is a huge tip from me: What keeps your heart healthy will keep your brain healthy and vice versa.
3. Walk 45 minutes three times a week. Tests showed that this "significantly improved mental ability of older adults": Well, yes. Think of all the O2 that's circulating in and out of your brain ( and your heart) cleansing, energizing and clearing.
4. If you have an insulin or sugar problem or have diabetes, take pains to control it as sugar and the dysregulation thereof is a big risk factor for dementia.
5. Don't overdo Omega 6 fats. What this tip is really saying is stop eating all processed foods or anything in a box, can, jar, bag or wrapper as those nasty products inevitably contain the bad Omega 6's that muck up your thinker.
6. Stimulate your brain. Be curious, learn something new, do crossword puzzles. "Just keeping busy seems to tune the brain." said Yaakov Stern, a neuropsychologist at Columbia. Stern found that the more "leisure pursuits" a person had, the lower their risk of developing dementia. What are "leisure pursuits"? According to Stern, that would be visiting friends, playing cards, going to the movies.
7. Stay social. Participate as much as you can, see your friends, talk to them on the phone, hug them, tell them you love them, join a church or a club of some sort. Just get out of the house. Be around people.
8. Avoid head injuries. This is very important. Please work at keeping your balance, pay attention to where you are going and what you are doing. In other words, stay in the present moment. Wear the right shoes, exercise your leg muscles, do anything not to fall and esp. to fall and hit your head.
9. Relax and stay positive. According to the Center for Healthy Minds, people who experience a lot of psychological distress, like worry, feeling insecure or nervous, are more likely to show mental decline. Furthermore, adults who suffer from depression have a higher risk of developing dementia. Try nutritional support for psych issues, starting with magnesium, but there is a lot of good stuff out there to get you out of a dangerous depressive rut, and I don't mean Prozac.
10. Don't live near high voltage lines. This will suck the thinker dry. Studies in Switzerland based on almost 5 million people found that those who live within 40 feet of a power line more than double their risk of dementia and other neurodegenerative disease.

I have something to add to the top ten. Start taking some sort of brain food, even in your 40's or 50's. I thought for sure that I was getting dementia in my early 50's and that's when I began taking my most favorite brain supplement: Acetyl-l-carnitine, but specifically Carnityl from Thorne. (Thorne brand just works better.) Here I am many years later, taking about 1,000 mgs. of Carnityl most days and I am still putting together sentences, so it seems to be working.

The MIND Diet: This is sort of a combination of the DASH diet (popular for heart disease and high blood pressure in some factions, not mine) and the Mediterranean diet (very popular by many including me.) In case you are a word nut like me, the acronym MIND means "Mediterranean-Dash Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay."

Researchers spent two years developing the MIND diet which contains many healthy foods like berries and greens  and, see? - here we go again. Refer to Tip #1 above. You just can't avoid the reality of a plant-strong diet of fruits and vegetables, can you? And since the genpop is getting older  that means you!  now is the time to get in the habit of really loading up on the good fresh, organic stuff.

Here is some of what the researchers found: Generally, fruits have not been shown to slow cognitive decline or prevent dementia, BUT, berries, esp. blueberries have. The MIND diet suggests eating blueberries 2 times a week. And I say, what's wrong with every day, in your smoothie?

They found that green leafy vegetables will protect the brain more than other vegetables. The MIND diet suggests one serving of greens in addition to eating one or more other vegetables a day. In fact, participants who ate one to two servings of green vegetables per day had a "dramatic decrease in the rate of cognitive decline... it was about the equivalent of being 11 years younger in age." (Dr. Morris, first author of the study as quoted in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia.) Have your daily salad and you have this knocked plus some.

The MIND diet is very heavy on nuts and beans, whole grains (careful here  not too much) and olive oil. They also recommend a glass of wine a day. Then fish and poultry. They consider the following 5 unhealthy: 1) Red meats. (My feeling is that, in moderation and grass fed- grass finished is just fine). 2) Butter (again, I think in moderation and oganic, just fine), 3) Cheese (try to eliminate this, it creates mucus and makes you fat) 4) Pastries and sweets and fried or fast food. Oh, yes, definitely yes on the last two.

In a 4 ½ year study with 923 participants between the ages of 58-98 with a median age of 81 and who did not have dementia when they started the MIND diet, the subjects whose diet choices adhered closely to the MIND diet had a 53% reduction for developing Alzheimer's. (I think they mean all dementias.) The risk was reduced 54% with the Mediterranean and only 39% with the DASH.

Talking about fish: I don't know about you, but I have been very confused about what kind of salmon to buy. I like to eat it once or twice a week, because it's both good for me and I love the taste. Wild-Caught is terribly expensive and the price puts me off, yet, when I go to buy farmed salmon I think awful thoughts of poopy water, crowded fish that don't have room to swim, sick looking tumors - you know, just like the dreadful CAFO's (ie. Confined Animal Feeding Operations) notoriously inflicted upon chickens. I have done some research and to make a long story shorter, I am now comfortable with Norwegian farmed salmon, sold at Whole foods in lovely little 6 oz. portions for $6.95 each.

Apparently the Norwegian is the safest of the farmed fish. As I understand it, Whole Foods either owns or has a special deal with a few Norwegian fisheries to raise farmed salmon at Whole Food's specifications. The salmon is raised in "carefully monitored, low-density pens without antibiotics, pesticides or added growth hormones. Detailed protocols prevent escape of the salmon into the wild, and harmful and lethal methods are never used on predator birds and marine mammals." And what do the fish farmers do about the salmon parasite problem in lieu of antibiotics? They use wrasse fish AKA cleaner fish who eat the parasites directly off of the swimming salmon.

I bake my salmon for about 10-15 minutes or until it's not slippery pink inside in maybe a 375-400 oven. I may marinate it for a ½ hour with prepared teriyaki sauce, or I mix olive oil and Dijon together and smear it on top before baking it.

The Chikungunya Virus: Have you heard of this yet? Apparently it's the new kid on the block gifted to the United States directly from the mosquitos of the Caribbean and South and Central America and it mimics arthritis. So if you have rheumatoid arthritis appear suddenly, or if your joints begin to ache suddenly, or you become feverish, and you have been to the Caribbean, then maybe you should get checked out for the ChikV virus. Just a heads up - your rheumatologist may not have this on her radar.

And before closing: If you recall from my last newsletter, plasticity is the ability to rewire our brain connections, learn new things, and create new neurons. This, in turn, keeps us cognitively sharp and engaged in life. A key part of this process is called long term potentiation, or LTP. In order for LTP to happen which is crucial for high level performance, memory encoding, activation and healing, we must have neurons that fire simultaneously. To practice this, start by changing your routine habits just a little bit.

Here are twenty tips on how to get your neurons to fire simultaneously: Brush your teeth with your non-dominant hand. Use your non-dominant hand to stir pots on the stove. Squeeze your shampoo bottle with the opposite hand. Fold your laundry in a different way. Rearrange your drawers. Choose a new route to work. Hold your car keys in the opposite hand. Turn your coffee cup so the handle is on the opposite side. Walk around the opposite side of the car when pumping gas.

Brush your hair with your opposite hand. Remember your funniest stories at least once a day, or watch something that gives you a real belly laugh. Take a laughter yoga class. Have someone you trust walk you around by the arm while you keep your eyes closed. Use your non-dominant leg to start your climb up or down the stairs. Choose a different seat at the dinner table. Sleep on the other side of the bed. When clasping your hands, position your fingers in a unique way. Count your money with your non-dominant hand. Water your plants with your non-dominant hand. Reverse the order of your morning face washing and teeth brushing routine.

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