 Safe from pharm? Image here | Unfortunately it isn't often where there are useful resources to help inform about Alzheimer's Disease. I found these two and wanted to share them in advance of a post to discuss in more depth. Stay-tuned for updates from the presentations and conferences from the road. The opportunity to attend meetings that focus on preventing overdiagnosis and rigorous research practice will continue to inform the content here. Click on the link below to view the powerpoint on brain health. |
| brainhealthpresentation-2.pptx |
I signed up for the Alzheimer's Prevention Registry and was hoping to see a diverse set of research opportunities outside of the monotherapeutic solutions persistently being pursued regardless of a long history of poor outcomes. Prevention made me think of social determinants of health and discussions of epigenetics. Here is an excerpt below from the Alzheimer's Disease Genetics Fact Sheet provided by the National Institute on Aging. Read on to continue reading the full document.
An article by Yu-Tzu Wu and Carol Brayne, Despite the headlines, dementia epidemic may not actually be getting worse balances the panic observed in the media with a more informed dialogue.
Adopting a drug-only approach is likely to lead to widening inequalities of access and problems with affordability, as we learned with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other diseases.
The current dementia prevention advice focuses on what people can do in terms of healthy behaviour and lifestyle: exercise, diet and so forth. Yet our lifestyles and health are considerably influenced by factors in our wider social environment over which we have limited control. For the sake of future populations, this is why responsibility for dementia prevention should be seen as a matter for society and the world as a whole.
Epigenetics: Nature Meets NurtureScientists have long thought that genetic and environmental factors interact to influence a person's biological makeup, including the predisposition to different diseases. More recently, they have discovered the biological mechanisms for those interactions. The expression of genes (when particular genes are “switched” on or off) can be affected—positively and negatively—by environmental factors at any time in life. These factors include exercise, diet, chemicals, or smoking, to which an individual may be exposed, even in the womb.
Epigenetics is an emerging science focused on how and when particular genes are turned on or off. Diet and exposure to chemicals in the environment, among other factors, can alter a cell's DNA in ways that affect the activity of genes. That can make people more or less susceptible to developing a disease.
There is emerging evidence that epigenetic mechanisms contribute to Alzheimer's disease. Epigenetic changes, whether protective, benign, or harmful, may help explain, for example, why one family member develops the disease and another does not. Scientists are learning more about Alzheimer's-related epigenetics, with the hope of developing individualized treatments based on epigenetic markers and their function.
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