Is it just me or is the push to find a “drug cure,” as opposed to focusing on protecting our health on a day-to-day basis, off the mark?  

My mother died from complications of Alzheimer’s.  This is the lingo…my mother’s complication being pneumonia ultimately.  We all know someone, or perhaps many someones with this horrid disease and we all want a cure.  But as stated in this article by Dr. Samuel Gandy, “All these symptomatic trials are 25 years too late.”

I cannot speak for anyone else, but I remember older people when I was a child we described as “slightly batty” or “senile.”  Those men and women, and there were precious few of them, were different than the men and women now described as victims of Alzheimer’s and related dementia.  When I was a child not one single family was taking care of someone with Alzheimer’s.  Now, it seems, a significant percentage of my friends are dealing with a parent or loved one with some form of dementia that requires that they be cared for round the clock or put in dedicated Alzheimer’s facilities.

I am not a doctor.  I am not a scientist or researcher on this disease.  But I read a lot about health and I am wondering if our focus shouldn’t center more on preventing the disease and taking care of the human body and mind such that we don’t get this disease to begin with.  I think it is wildly unfair to “blame” anyone for getting this disease.  But, from what I know, there are connections between heart health and brain health.  There are connections between elevated blood sugar levels over the long run and diabetes and Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.  There are connections between inflammation in the body and disease in general.  And there are things we can do to take care of ourselves.  My mother smoked, as did many of the World War II generation.  This, alone, is a horror show for the human body.

Yes, there appears to also be some genetic aspect.  But genes, from what I understand, are “switches” that may or may not be turned on at some point in a person’s life.

My mother died of this disease.  My husband’s mother died of a form of vascular dementia.  I do not want to spend my days worrying about whether I, too, will succumb, or whether my husband will succumb.  

Instead I choose to exercise.  And to watch what we eat.  And to prepare foods that nourish our bodies and our brains.  And to keep us away from processed foods filled with chemicals as much as I possibly can.  And to control our blood sugar levels.  And not do “obvious” things that are poisonous to the body – like smoking and drinking sodas and now, apparently,  eating genetically modified foods.  And to use supplements that are known to boost the immune system.

And I try to fill our lives with creativity and intellectual stimulation and inspiration for going forward in life and not being afraid.

Because that is what I can do today.

I wish for each of you that today you do what you can to take care of your health, and that it inspires you to do the same tomorrow and, perhaps, to inspire someone you love to change their own health for the better.  Because who knows if there will ever be a drug to prevent this wretched visitation from the Netherworld known as Alzheimers.  

Be healthy.  Be strong.  Go forward.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/24/business/alzheimers-drug-fails-its-first-clinical-trial.html?_r=1&src=recg