There is no one single cause of Alzheimer’s disease, Alzheimer’s is brought
on by varying factors with each person affected being different. However, the
biggest two factors that increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s are
the advancement of age and heredity. Your degree of mental fitness and your
environment are also thought to play a part to some extent - although this and
several other theories have not yet been proven.
Who gets Alzheimer’s?
By the time you reach the age of 65, roughly 5 in 100 people have developed
the disease, by the age of 80 the odds have jumped to 1 in 5, and almost half
of all people at the age of 90 have some signs of dementia. Alzheimer’s isn’t
strictly limited to those over the age of 65; much younger people have been
affected by it. It is a disease that is thought to occur in women more than men,
but the main reason for this is simply that women tend to live longer than men.
Alzheimer’s and heredity:
There has proven to be a heredity link to Alzheimer’s in roughly 3% of all
cases of the disease. Heredity is thought to occur when the onset of the
disease has occurred at an early age, with about 40% of people who
developed the disease before the age of 65 having family members affected
by the disease. This does not mean that having a family member with
Alzheimer’s will guarantee being affected by it. Quite the contrary, although
those with affected family members are at a slightly higher risk than others,
there are still measures that can be taken to help avoid the onset of
Alzheimer’s.
Avoiding Alzheimer’s:
Many believe that the environment in which you live can make a difference as
to whether you are more susceptible to developing Alzheimer’s. Research is
currently being conducted as to whether exposure to certain metals is a
contributing factor to developing the disease. Many experts have tied
aluminum as a possible cause of the disease and suggest that antiperspirant
deodorants are avoided due to their high aluminum content.
Many doctors also believe that one’s state of mental health plays a large part
in the onset of the disease. The sharper one keeps oneself, the less
susceptible one is to the disease. However, there is not currently any
evidence to suggest that staying mentally fit will make a difference one way or
the other.
There are thought to be many other factors that could lead to the effect
of Alzheimer’s, but additional research is needed due to there being a lot of
conflicting evidence. Factors to consider include head trauma, various viral
infections, a history of Down syndrome in the family, smoking, and thyroid
disease.
The future of Alzheimer’s:
Unfortunately, there is not currently any particular test that doctors can use to
indicate who may be more susceptible to developing the disease.
The primary goal in research right now is to understand better the mechanisms of
the disease with the hope of one day being able to predict those people who
are more susceptible to Alzheimer’s before the disease sets in.
By doing so, scientists and doctors believe that it could lead to the development of
treatment to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s.
