"You can control your blood pressure, your diabetes, you can wear headgear to make sure you don’t get a concussion and you can eat the right foods," said Dr. Diamond.

The NIH’s Alzheimer’s Prevention Panel whipped up passions this week with its new report, “Preventing Alzheimer’s Disease and Cognitive Decline.” The panel is part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).

According to NIH's press release, “The panel determined that there is currently no evidence of even moderate scientific quality supporting the association of any modifiable factor with reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive decline.”

What's peculiar is that the report is full of good analytical advice identifying those things that help to lower a person’s risk. The following table highlights a few of them. Click on any link in the table for the complete list.

Another irony is that the NIH also offers a free booklet recommending ways to prevent Alzheimer's. At the same time, the mass media headlined the NIH concluding that there is nothing people can do to protect themselves from Alzheimer’s. With all the Alzheimer's prevention advances in the news over the past decade, it made little sense.

So how did a report rich in insights on lowering risk bring about totally negative headlines? The reason is the panel's focus on causality. The panel concluded that “the primary limitation with most of the [prevention] studies is the distinction between association and causality.” This means current studies do not ask what causes Alzheimer's. As a result, they cannot ask how to prevent the cause. Rather, today's studies show "associations." For example, one study shows that people who eat more vegetables than average have a lower risk of Alzheimer's. It's a clue, not a proof. The NIH panel wanted proofs and when they got in front of the press, they threw out the proverbial "baby-with-the-bathwater" by saying that there are no good proven methods to prevent Alzheimer's. When people read this in papers, it sounded like there were no methods for lowering Alzheimer's risk that were worth anything at all.

In response, Dr. Jack Diamond, Scientific Director of the Alzheimer’s Society of Canada, said “I don’t agree with it at all, but they are not saying anything I can deny. They are just putting a twist on it.”

“They say, 'We have no really hard evidence on this. I mean, we are not saying we know what CAUSES Alzheimer’s.' We are saying we know what CONTRIBUTES TO THE PROBABILITY of getting it. I just find the presentation was not to my taste.”

Dr. Diamond argued, “Let’s take one item – exercise. There are numerous studies which show to my satisfaction that exercise both slows down Alzheimer’s, if you’ve already got it, and also reduces your chances of getting it.”

“All we are saying is that [certain risk factors] can be shown to increase your chances of getting Alzheimer’s. We are not saying it causes it, we are saying it increases your chances, and that’s important. Because obviously, some of these risk factors can be dealt with. You can control your blood pressure, your diabetes, you can wear headgear to make sure you don’t get a concussion and you can eat the right foods. I really find it rather surprising.”

Said Bill Thies, Chief Medical and Scientific Officer for The Alzheimer's Association, “It would be unfortunate if [the report] were interpreted as a call to end brain health activities because they are not fruitful.”

One reader told us, “The media's headlines remind me of an old Bell Labs joke about a helicopter pilot whose GPS system broke as he groped through a thick Seattle fog. Hovering near an office building, the pilot's passenger hung a sign out the window that said, “Where are we?” The people in the building scrambled, found a poster, scribbled quickly on the back and hung it out the window. It said, “You are in a helicopter.” The pilot turned the helicopter south and soon touched down safely on his landing pad. The passenger queried, “How were you able to figure out from that answer where we were?” “Oh simple,” he replied. “I realized we were on the Microsoft campus. You got an answer that was technically accurate and absolutely useless.”

Once you get past the sensationalist headlines and look closely at the report, it is a treasure trove of valuable, scientific, meticulously reviewed insights into preventing Alzheimer’s.

Click here to read the report, “Preventing Alzheimer’s Disease and Cognitive Decline.”

Click here for a summary of what works in Alzheimer's prevention.

READ RELATED ARTICLES

A great resource from the National Institute on Aging, here is a booklet packed with information about whether and how Alzheimer’s disease can be prevented.

This chart assesses the 34 best-known ways to lower the risk of dementias such as Alzheimer's. Based on the U.S. National Institutes of Health's new 2010 report.

More Information:

Click here to read the report, “Preventing Alzheimer’s Disease and Cognitive Decline.”

Source:

National Institutes of Health

CTVglobemedia, Canada

The Tangled Neuron

Week of May 2 - May 9, 2010

By Peter Berger, Alzheimer's Weekly.
Reviewed by
Dr. Boaz Ancselovic, MD, Geriatrician, Alzheimer's Weekly.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Alzheimer's Weekly LLC.
All Rights Reserved.