Folate Deficiency Triples Risk Of Alzheimer's

Nutritional scientists used to think the key to a long and healthy life lay in antioxidants, and health conscious people, including me, were taking lots of vitamins C and E. Couldn’t hurt and might help, we thought. Then research showed that people taking more than 400 IU of vitamin E per day had a 10% higher risk of death compared to those who did not! My vitamin E capsules went down the drain that very day, and I felt that the scientists of the world had led me down the primrose path.

Now the future seems to lie, not in plastics, but in folates. And the research seems solid. So solid that my 78-year-old husband’s doctor has him taking supplements of folic acid, the pharmaceutical equivalent of the folates in food.

Remember the Kame Project, in which subjects who drank fruit or vegetable juice more than three times a week cut their risk of Alzheimer’s by a whopping 76%? Well, every year it seems more likely that it’s the folates in those fruits and vegetables that were working those wonders.

In fact, the latest research, as reported on February 5, 2008, in Science Daily, found that folate deficiency is associated with a tripling in the risk of developing dementia among elderly people.

Where Do We Find These Folates?

Folates occur most often in leafy vegetables such as spinach, turnip greens, lettuces, dried beans and peas, and in certain fruits. Here is a chart from the NIH Office Of Dietary Supplements. As you can see, both tomato juice and orange juice are fairly good sources, and I assume those were the main things the Kame Project subjects, the ones who cut their risk of Alzheimer’s by 76%, were drinking on a regular basis.

The one-a-day vitamin capsules that my husband and I take also supply 100% of our daily requirement of folic acid, giving us one more reason we should take those daily vitamins. The vitamin manufacturers obviously keep up with the scientific literature, and I appreciate this more every year.

Here are some earlier posts about the relation between diet and Alzheimer’s:

Live Longer With The Mediterranean Diet

It’s Scary – I’m Forgetting Things

Prevent Alzheimer’s With Good Cholesterol

Prevent Alzheimer’s By Your Diet

Internet Searches Prevent Alzheimer's?

Some ways of exercising one’s brain are more fun than others. A 2008 study published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry “looked at the brain activity of 24 neurologically normal volunteers between the ages of 55 and 76 as they searched the Internet. Half of the participants had experience surfing the Web, while the others did not.”

Researchers used fMRI scans to track subjects’ brain activity while reading books and doing Internet searches. All of them showed significant brain activity during the book reading, but “Internet searches revealed differences between the two groups. While all the participants showed the same activity as during the book-reading, the Web-savvy group also registered activity in the frontal, temporal and cingulate areas of the brain, whereas those new to the net did not. (These areas of the brain control decision-making and complex reasoning.)”

Feeling smarter? You should.

More “Use It Or Lose It”

A 2003 study in the New England Journal Of Medicine found that “among leisure activities, reading, playing board games, playing musical instruments, and dancing were associated with a reduced risk of dementia.” Dancing is not only a “leisure activity” but one of the most enjoyable kinds of exercise, and exercise has also been found to prevent Alzheimer’s.

If you’d like to see other posts about brain fitness:

Avoid Alzheimer’s With Brain Games

Playing Strategy Games Keeps Elders Sharp

Avoid Alzheimer’s With A Fit Brain

The Dark And Bright Sides Of Alcohol

Some lab rats at the Ohio State University summed it up: Researchers “designed a special liquid diet for the rats. One formulation included a low dose of alcohol, comparable to two or three drinks a day for a human, while the other diet included a much higher dose of alcohol, comparable to six or seven drinks a day for a human. A third group of rats was given a liquid diet without alcohol.” In memory tests, rats that consumed moderate levels of alcohol outperformed those given high doses of alcohol or none at all.

These results tie in with French epidemiological studies that found that regions of France with the highest wine consumption tend to have the lowest Alzheimer's risk.

The Dark Side of Alcohol

And then there’s alcoholic dementia, an illness that is, of course, caused by excessive use of alcohol. Binge drinking seems especially dangerous. Finnish investigators found that people who drank more than five bottles of beer or one bottle of wine once a month were more than three times as likely to get dementia.

Alcohol dementia may not cause much memory loss at first. Instead, it often becomes evident by these signs:

– poor planning
– personality change
– poor judgment
– difficulty handling complex situations

But, ultimately, alcohol dementia may be indistinguishable from Alzheimer's.

Vitamin B12, Key To The Aging Brain

An Oxford University study found that “individuals with lower vitamin B12 levels at the start of the study had a greater decrease in brain volume. Those with the lowest B12 levels had a sixfold greater rate of brain volume loss compared with those who had the highest levels of the vitamin.”

Interestingly, individuals with the greater rate of brain loss were not deficient in B12 – they were merely low in it.

Best Sources of B12

Vitamin B12 is naturally found in foods that come from animals, including fish, meat, poultry, eggs, milk, and milk products. Seafood is an especially good source of B12, as are fortified breakfast cereals. Milk and eggs have quite a bit less than fish and fortified cereals, as you can see on this chart from the National Institutes of Health.

Vegetarians – and especially vegans, who do not use milk or eggs – should strongly consider a dietary supplement. And older people who don’t “bother” with proper meals need either a dietary supplement or a special effort to eat foods rich in B12 – especially since brain volume loss can result merely from low levels in B12.

Belly Fat Is Linked To Alzheimer's

Unfortunately, the location of our fat counts. Researchers at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research found that the bigger the belly in midlife, the more difficult it is to avoid dementia and Alzheimer’s later on. And you don’t even need to overeat much to have problems because, if you’re naturally apple shaped, with most fat around your waist, excess weight is more dangerous to your health than if you’re naturally pear shaped. The researchers found, in fact, that people who were in the upper 20 percent of belly size had a 2.72 times greater risk of dementia, compared to people in the bottom 20 percent.

(Speaking as a naturally apple shaped lady, I can add that apple shaped people also have a difficult time finding jeans that fit. They all pooch out at the hips for those apparently lucky and hippy pear-shaped people.)

Belly fat also increases the risk of diabetes, heart trouble, and stroke.

We all know we should keep down our weight. But, sadly, keeping down weight is even more important for apple-shaped people than it is for pear-shaped people.

Let me add that, if you’re looking for healthy ways to take off weight and keep it off, do visit my 1000 Best Sites For Families And Seniors. Click on Diets, Nutrition in the lefthand column to find some of the best information on the Web.

Improve Your Memory With Blueberries

I’m leery of “miracle” foods, but the benefits of blueberries have been demonstrated by solid research. The first piece of research, sponsored by the USDA, came out in 1999, and it showed that blueberries helped the memories, balance, and coordination of “aging rats.” I feel a kinship with aging rats, and on the strength of their success made frozen blueberries a snack food. (Why frozen? I was trying to lose weight, and, if you dole out the frozen blueberries in extremely small portions, then wait for them to thaw, then slowly eat them, and then wait awhile longer, then go back to the refrigerator and spoon out another tiny frozen portion and wait for it to thaw . . . you see how the technique works.)

A new British scientific study using blueberries on human subjects came out in April, 2008. It found that “phytochemical-rich foods, such as blueberries, are effective at reversing age-related deficits in memory.” The wording implied that there are a number of “phytochemical-rich foods” that would improve memory. But which foods are they?

More Foods That Improve Memory

The USDA study on rats found that extracts of blueberry, strawberry or spinach all improved short-term memory, but only blueberries improved balance and coordination as well. The British researchers, however, used only blueberries -- one-half cup daily for 12 weeks -- with their human subjects, and found that “improvements in spatial working memory tasks emerged within three weeks and continued throughout the period of the study.”

As it turns out, these researchers have big plans for trying other foods rich in flavonoids on people with cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s. But they haven’t got to it yet. So they can’t really say whether strawberries or spinach or any number of other foods might be equally beneficial to older people with and without Alzheimer’s.

What Exactly Are These Phytochemical-Rich Foods?

I went to ANSWERS.COM, which has many specialized dictionaries and encyclopedias. ANSWERS.COM says that a phytochemical is “a member of a wide range of chemicals found in fruits and vegetables that may have beneficial effects on human health. Phytochemicals are biologically very active. They include antioxidants, phyto-oestrogens, and compounds that modify potential toxins and carcinogens.”

And WIKIPEDIA.ORG says that “foods high in phytonutrients, or superfoods, are:

“- soy – protease inhibitors, beta sitosterol, saponins, phytic acid, isoflavones
- tomato – lycopene, beta carotene, vitamin C
- broccoli – vitamin C, 3,3'-Diindolylmethane, sulphoraphane, lignans, selenium
- garlic – thiosulphonates, limonene, quercitin
- flax seeds and oil seeds – lignans
- citrus fruits – monoterpenes, coumarin, cryptoxanthin, vitamin C, ferulic acid, oxalic acid
- blueberries – tannic acid, lignans, anthocyanins
- sweet potatoes – beta carotene
- chilli peppers – capsaicin
- legumes: beans, peas, lentils – omega fatty acids, saponins, catechins, quercetin, lutein, lignans.”

The truth is that scientists have only begun to study the phytochemical-rich “superfoods.” They don’t even know what all the superfoods are, much less what they can do. We can therefore look forward to many more important discoveries about the role of superfoods in our diet.

Exercise To Prevent Alzheimer's

Swedish scientists found that people who engaged in "leisure time physical activity" at least twice a week as they passed through middle age had a 50 percent lower chance of developing dementia, and a 60 percent lower chance of developing Alzheimer’s, when compared with their more sedentary colleagues, says a study published in October, 2005, in Lancet Neurology.

And Exercise Creates New Brain Cells!

Yes, really. Through a special MRI imaging technique, researchers at Columbia University were able to watch “neurogenesis,” that is, the growth of neurons or nerve cells, within a living person’s brain. And it happened right after exercise.

So exercise doesn’t just “clear the brain.” It adds to the brain while preventing Alzheimer’s.

Be Friendly And Avoid Alzheimer's

The title exaggerates a little, but not much. One research project after another reports that, if we want to stay sharp all our lives, relationships matter. One of the most recent is the 2008 report of a Harvard School Of Public Health Study showing that elderly people in the U.S. with an active social life have a slower rate of memory decline. In fact, memory decline among the most integrated was less than half the rate of that among the least integrated. (Social integration was indicated by marital status, volunteer activities, and contact with parents, children and neighbors.)

Just 10 Minutes’ Conversation Helps

Many seniors, especially “senior seniors,” find computer brain games daunting. But there are simpler – and age-old – ways to keep an older brain alert. The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research reported in 2008 on a study that tested people as old as 96. Lead author Oscar Ybarra said, "We found that short-term social interaction lasting for just 10 minutes boosted participants' intellectual performance as much as engaging in so-called 'intellectual' activities for the same amount of time."

Sociability Even Protects Those With Alzheimer’s!

A surprising 2006 study from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago found that some people with many social contacts with family or friends were protected from the effects of Alzheimer’s, even though they had Alzheimer’s tangles and plaques in their brains!

Down Side For the Non-Social

According to a study by the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, “Those who were married or living with a partner in midlife had a 50 percent lower risk of having dementia later in life, compared to those who lived alone—even after adjusting for education, occupation, exercise, general health and other variables.

“People who were single throughout their lives had double the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, compared to the married, while those who were divorced and stayed divorced from midlife on had triple the risk.”

And the most dramatic risk increase was found among those who lost a spouse in midlife and stayed single. They had more than a sixfold risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease compared with their married peers.

It is often difficult for those divorced or widowed to build a new social life, but clearly such a social life will help protect them from Alzheimer’s.

Live Longer With The Mediterranean Diet

The Mediterranean diet isn’t a fad weight-loss diet. It’s what millions of people have been eating for thousands of years. It’s true that you can lose weight on this diet. You can also gain weight on it, if you, say, fling about the olive oil, binge on pasta, and finish up with a few pieces of baklava. But, on the average, people eating the Mediterranean diet live longer and live healthier than most others. I'm sure they live longer and healthier than those eating a fast-food American diet with lots of munchies. And people eating the Mediterranean diet are less likely to get Alzheimer’s.

Learn more about living longer with the Mediterranean diet from my TOUR THE SITES website. Scroll down its left margin to Diets, Nutrition. You’ll find there much information on healthy eating – including, of course, the Mediterranean diet.

Alzheimer’s And The Mediterranean Diet

In 2006 researchers reported on a study of 2,258 older adults in New York. They scored the food intake of the participants from 0-9, depending on how near they came to the Mediterranean diet. The higher the score, the nearer to the Mediterranean diet.

Compared with those with the lowest scores, those with middle scores were 15 percent less likely to have Alzheimer's disease, and those with the highest scores were 40 percent less likely to have Alzheimer's disease.

In 2008 researchers in Italy reported on pooled data from 12 international studies on the Mediterranean diet. They found that those who closely followed the Mediterranean diet were

– 9 percent less likely to die from heart disease or other cardiovascular problems;

– 6 percent less likely to develop cancer or die from it;

– 13 percent less likely to have Parkinson's or Alzheimer's disease.

For Those Who Already Have Alzheimer’s

The Mediterranean diet helps here too. In 2007 researchers reported on a study that followed 192 people with Alzheimer’s disease in New York for an average of four and a half years. “Alzheimer's patients who adhered to the diet to a moderate degree lived an average 1.3 years longer than those people who least adhered to the diet. And those Alzheimer's patients who followed the diet very religiously lived an average four years longer,” said study author Nikos Scarmeas, of Columbia University Medical Center in New York.

What Exactly Is The Mediterranean Diet?

According to WEB MD: the Mediterranean diet includes high intake of certain foods:

– Fruits including apples, oranges, orange or grapefruit juice, peaches, apricots, plums, and bananas;

– Vegetables including tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, raw or cooked carrots, corn, yams, spinach, collard greens, and yellow squash;

– Legumes including peas, lima beans, lentils, and beans;

– Cereals including cold breakfast cereals, white or dark bread, rice, pasta, and potatoes (baked, broiled, or mashed);

– Olive oil and other oils with monounsaturated fatty acids.

The Mediterranean diet also includes moderate amounts of fish of all types, low intake of meat and poultry, low to moderate amounts of dairy products, and a moderate amount of alcohol (usually wine served at meals).


Some versions of the Mediterranean diet add moderate amounts of lean chicken in addition to the fish – an easier version for many to follow.

Avoid Alzheimer's With A Fit Brain

BRAIN FITNESS is a burgeoning research field. It’s of great interest to people who would like to avoid Alzheimer’s by keeping their brains in top condition, but many younger people are also interested in the possibilities. If you like to keep up with the latest research, SHARP BRAINS has an excellent blog, and as you read the blog you’ll see the broad area that the term brain fitness now takes in. The blog recently featured the “Top 10 Brain Fitness And Cognitive Health Books.” These books contain fascinating material on new ways to apply the latest brain research.

One, an unusual weight control book, suggests that you can “Train Your Brain To Think Like A Thin Person.” Another trumpets, “How A New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential To Transform Ourselves.” And a third, with an odd sounding but interesting concept, tells us “How The New Science Of Gratitude Can Make You Happier.”

Sharp Brains’ Most Important Book of 2008

It’s Dr. Torkel Klingberg’s “The Overflowing Brain: Information Overload And The Limits Of Working Memory.” The book deals with the constant distractions of modern life, multitasking, and the magnificent overload of material now available online. (Which online overload I and many others are trying to trim by finding the best material on selected subjects.)

You'll find here a nice summary by Dr. Klingberg himself.

Prevent Alzheimer's With "Good" Cholesterol

We hear so much about the “bad” kind that we forget the good – that is, the HDL – cholesterol. Yet, in a study summarized in MED HEADLINES, researchers found “that a high level of HDL lowers the risk of heart attack, aids numerous biological processes, removes excess cholesterol from the bloodstream, helps nerve cells develop, and controls the production of beta-amyloid. Alzheimer’s disease patients have a build-up . . . of beta-amyloid.”

We find more evidence that good cholesterol staves off memory loss and dementia in the British Whitehall II study segment in which 3,673 British civil servants were analyzed regarding the effect of HDL on memory function as they got older. A key finding: At 55 years of age, participants with low levels of HDL were at 53% higher risk of impaired memory than those with high levels of HDL.

What Foods Are Rich in Good Cholesterol?

"Bad" cholesterol hangs out in popular foods like fatty meat and cheese. Good cholesterol is plentiful in olive and other vegetable oils, avocados, and nuts. (And, yes, the healthful qualities of the newly popular Mediterranean Diet have quite a bit to do with the good cholesterol in it.)

WEIGHT WATCHERS advocated a low-fat diet for years – until this information about good cholesterol came out. Now they advocate small amounts of olive oil, avocado, or nuts as part of a reducing diet. And, you know, when my husband and I tried that, we found that the little bit of oil left us feeling much more satisfied for much longer and kept us on our diet.

This excellent article by the MAYO CLINIC expands the good-cholesterol list with oatmeal and fish.

Healthy Recipes With Good Cholesterol

When I tried to find some healthy recipes for the kind of fish that is rich in omega-3s, even Google failed me. I kept hitting one earnest explanation of omega-3s after another, but no recipes . . . until I found MARTHA STEWART. She has some delicious ones.

I had no such problem with avocados. Avocado recipes abound, and here is the largest selection of good avocado recipes I found, at AVOCADO.ORG, of course.

Playing Strategy Games Keeps Elders Sharp

In research by the University of Illinois, 40 adults over 60 years old were divided into two groups. Half were asked to play a computer game called Rise of Nations, a role-playing game in which players build their own empires. Players build cities, feed and employ their people, maintain a military, and expand their territory.

According to the SHARP BRAINS BLOG, “As a group, the 'gamers' became significantly better – and faster – at switching between tasks as compared to the comparison group. Their working memory, as reflected in the tests, was also significantly improved and their reasoning ability was enhanced.”

In a second study, the researchers “found no comparable cognitive benefits for college students in their early 20s who played the same game for the same number of hours, regardless of whether they play videogames often or don't.”

Why Did Older Players Benefit More?

Professor A. F. Kramer, one of the researchers, explained it this way in the blog: “It seems clear that, as we age, our so-called crystallized abilities remain pretty stable, whereas the so-called fluid abilities decline. One particular set of fluid abilities are called executive functions, which deal with executive control, planning, dealing with ambiguity, prioritizing, multi-tasking. These skills are crucial to maintain independent living.

“In this study, . . . we showed that playing a strategy-based videogame (Rise of Nations Gold Edition) . . . transferred to untrained executive functions. We saw a significant improvement in task switching, working memory, visual short-term memory, and mental rotation. And some, but more limited, benefits in inhibition and reasoning.”

In short, complex strategy games are very, very good for older people’s brains.

It's Scary -- I'm Forgetting Things

When your information highway turns into an overgrown bicycle path, IT’S SCARY. I know, I’ve been there. I kept complaining to my doctor about my memory. I asked her if I should take ginkgo to help it, but she thought that would have a bad effect on my blood pressure. And scientific research has since given the final word: ginkgo biloba does NOT prevent Alzheimer’s.
And an earlier scientific study indicated that ginkgo fails to help people’s memory, period.

Omega-3s Do Help Prevent Alzheimer’s

My doctor did recommend that I take omega-3 fatty acids, which are in fish oil and flax seed oil. And recent research has confirmed that there is an anti-Alzheimer’s mechanism in fish oil. My husband and I are not that fond of fish, and we have been taking the fish oil capsules instead. They’re cheaper than fish too.

Watch Your Wallet!

Watch your wallet when it comes to the fad of putting omega-3s into all sorts of products. I saw an ad for Kellog’s Live Bright™ Health Bars, with omega-3 fatty acids, which bars cost more than $4 each from Amazon, probably still more if you go to a “brain games” house party. The bars contain only 100 mg. of omega-3s. One inexpensive fish oil capsule has 1,000 mg. Three ounces of canned salmon has 1,200. These health bars do have the advantage of dark chocolate, which is not only good for you but tastes extremely delicious. And, hey, if you don’t mind the cost, get a bunch. But do read the article in USA Today first.

Avoid Alzheimer's With Brain Games

I call it “the research that launched a thousand websites.”

The results in 2006 of the “ACTIVE" Study started a big Internet buzz and a multitude of websites. Plus giving us the idea that having fun with brain games may prevent Alzheimer’s.

The ACTIVE Study divided 2,802 normal subjects over age 65 into four groups. The memory group learned strategies for remembering word lists and sequences. The reasoning group learned strategies for finding the pattern in a letter or word series and identifying the next item in a series. The speed-of-processing group learned ways to identify an object on a computer screen at increasingly brief exposures. The fourth group received no memory training.

Can You Train A Brain?

Immediately after the initial training, 87 percent of the speed-training group, 74 percent of the reasoning group and 26 percent of the memory group showed improvement in the skills taught.

Do Brains Stay Trained?

And after five years, people in each memory-skills group performed better on tests than people in the control group. The reasoning-training and speed-training groups who received booster training had the greatest benefit.

The Internet responded to this news with an avalanche of websites featuring “brain games.” Some are free, others are quite expensive. If you’d like a good selection of free memory helps and games and a review of the ones that cost, try my TOUR THE SITES website. Go to the 1000 BEST SITES in the lefthand margin and click on Brain Games.

Do Statin Drugs Help Prevent Alzheimer's?

We know that statin drugs lower a person’s cholesterol, but do they also help people avoid dementia and Alzheimer’s? Over the past several years, research results have varied. But a study that came out in the summer of 2008 found that “people at high risk for dementia who took cholesterol-lowering statins are half as likely to develop dementia as those who do not take statins,” reports Science Daily.

Are Some Statins Better At Preventing Alzheimer’s?

In 2007, Boston University researcher Benjamin Wolozin, MD, and colleagues analyzed the huge U.S. Veterans Affairs database, with detailed information on 4.5 million patients. According to the description in Web M.D., “some 727,000 of these patients took Zocor, about 54,000 took Lipitor, and about 54,000 took Mevacor.

“In patients over age 64, those who took Zocor were 54% less likely to get Alzheimer's disease and 49% less likely to get Parkinson's disease than were matched patients not taking statin drugs.”

“Those who took Lipitor were 9% less likely to get Alzheimer's disease, a finding that was not statistically significant. . . . Mevacor had no effect on risk of either Alzheimer's disease or Parkinson's disease.”

It’s also encouraging to know that Zocor is available as a generic known as simvastatin, at a fraction of the cost of brand-name statins.

Research in this area is continuing, but statins are emerging as a promising adjunct for Alzheimer’s prevention.

Prevent Alzheimer's By Your Diet

An astonishing study from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine showed that subjects who drank fruit and vegetable juice three or more times per week cut their risk of Alzheimer’s by a whopping 76 percent, compared to those who drank juices less than once per week. Which research results suddenly made the simple act of drinking fruit or vegetable juice appear to be one of the best ways to avoid Alzheimer’s!

For the study, part of the Kame Project, the researchers identified 1,836 dementia-free subjects in the Seattle population, and collected information on their dietary consumption of fruit and vegetable juices. They then assessed cognitive function every two years for up to 10 years, coming up with the surprising results described above.

These particular Kame Project results, which were reported in 2006, sent researchers in new directions. They have resulted in further important discoveries about Alzheimer’s prevention – which discoveries will be covered in later posts.

Exercise Is A Prime Way To Avoid Alzheimer's

Plain, old-fashioned exercise is emerging as one of the best ways to avoid Alzheimer’s.

The Nurses’ Health Study, which interviewed 18,766 US women aged 70 to 81 years, found that those who walked at least 1.5 miles a week had the least thinking impairment. The researchers have been following the health and physical activity of these women since 1986 and have tested their thinking abilities over the years. And women who were more physically active had significantly less decline in their thinking abilities as they aged.

Two Miles A Day Did It For These Men

The Honolulu-Asia Aging Study had similar findings. They interviewed 2,257 men between 71 and 93 years of age. They found that men who walked two miles per day had half the risk of dementia, compared to those who walked less than a quarter mile per day. And Alzheimer’s is, of course, simply one form of dementia.

So exercise doesn’t only appear to “blow the cobwebs out” of our brains, as the saying goes. In the case of these research subjects it cut their risk of dementia in half!

What Are The Symptoms Of Alzheimer's?

How much forgetfulness is a natural part of aging, and how much is a sign that a person is sinking into dementia or its most-feared form, Alzheimer’s disease? The Fisher Center For Alzheimer’s Research has laid it all out for us on its website. You can see from the description that a certain amount of forgetfulness is a normal part of aging. In fact, a good rule of thumb is: if you have to search for a word but recall it after a bit, you’re simply a normal older person. If you tend to lose words and they never come back, you may have a problem.

You Can Give Your Memory A Boost

If you’d like to test your memory or learn some good techniques to improve your memory, you can find excellent material in the 1000 BEST SITES FOR FAMILIES AND SENIORS. These "1000 Best" sites are on my own Tour The Sites website. Just scroll down the site's lefthand column, click on Brain Games and then on Boost Your Memory.

Ways You Can Avoid Alzheimer's

People over the age of fifty-five tell pollsters they are more afraid of Alzheimer’s than of cancer. Yet scientific research is revealing numerous things you and I can do to prevent dementia and its most-feared form, Alzheimer’s disease. And this blog is devoted to telling people the many things scientists say we can do to stay sharp all our lives.

Most of us read items about preventing Alzheimer’s in magazines or newspapers, but researchers’ advice often mirrors the advice our mothers and doctors have been giving us all along. And the whole thing slides past us. You’ll find here, however, a COMPILATION of Alzheimer’s prevention items, all based in the scientific research, which compilation should be more memorable.

These ways of avoiding Alzheimer’s cover a wide range of activities: the way we eat, how much we exercise, and the way we take care of our health. I’ll report about all these ways to keep our minds sharp, along with the promising medical treatments starting to come out for those who already have the disease.