Alzheimer’s Breakthrough: Baby Boomer Quiz Could Halve Deadly Disease

Baby boomers are urged to take a simple, free, 15-20-minute online test that became available this week in hopes of halving Alzheimer’s Disease. The test, assessing a person’s chance of getting the deadly brain condition and giving personalized advice to cut the risk, comes on the heels of a powerfull report last week regarding mood and behavior changes that consistently occur before doctors diagnose Alzheimer’s.

Designed for people 50 years old and over, the quiz is being trialed at Cornel University. A UK leading Alzheimer’s authority, Professor David Smith from Oxford University and the charity Food For The Brain helped develop the free test that does more than just predict onset of the disease.

“Not only does the test give people positive prevention steps to reduce risk in the long-term but also there’s an annual check up so people can track how diet and lifestyle changes impact on their cognitive function,” stated Prof. Smith.

One in three American seniors die with Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia. Women are at the epicenter of the cruel disease. Of the over 5 million Americans with Alzheimer’s, two-thirds of those who die with the cruel disease are women.

The quiz can be used to help understand which parts of a person’s lifestyle and diet directly affect Alzheimer’s risk by collating and assessing thousands of replies. It then provides a personalized health plan for each individual.

Cornell University’s Medical Centre in New York experts are using the quiz in their research to detect early cognitive function changes that predict Alzheimer’s risk.

“We want to encourage everyone over 50 to start taking positive prevention steps now rather than wait until it is too late,” stated Patrick Holford, a nutrition and mental health expert and a spokesman for Food For The Brain. “By encouraging people to take positive prevention steps, and tracking their memory function over time, we hope to be able to map the extent to which specific diet and lifestyle improvements stop or delay cognitive decline in hundreds of thousands of people.

“If people aged 50 start to do a very sensitive memory test every year then they are going to maximize their chances of taking actions that will reduce that risk,” Holford asserted.

“The brain starts shrinking from at least the age of 50 so in other words it is not that people suddenly develop Alzheimer’s in their 80s. What happens is that our brains start shrinking much earlier – it is about a 30 to 40 year process leading up to developing Alzheimer’s disease dementia.

The quiz comes on the heels of powerful new research reported last week showing sets of mood and behavior changes that consistently occur before Alzheimer’s is finally diagnosed. These sets occur in three phases that can be observed over time. For seven years, the researchers followed 2,416 people over age 50 without cognitive issues. After the seven years, researchers found approximately half of those the people, 1,218 people, had developed dementia and each one had demonstrated specific mood and behavior changes during the seven years.

Those with dementia had twice the risk of developing depression and irritability earlier—long before their dementia symptoms began—than people without the disease. They also were 12 times more likely to eventually develop lack of impulse control and delusions.

The researchers found that pre-dementia symptoms appeared in consistent phases:

• Phase 1: Irritability, depression, and nighttime behavior changes;
• Phase 2: Anxiety, appetite changes, agitation and apathy.
• Phase 3: Elation, motor disturbances, hallucinations, delusions and disinhibition (lack of impulse control)

The new online quiz can be found at www.foodforthebrain.org.

Sources: Food For The Brain, Time, Daily Express, Alzheimer’s Association

Images Credit: Alzheimer’s Association, Food For The Brain.org