Study: Alzheimer’s Prevention May Start in Childhood

If you have ever known someone with Alzheimer’s disease, you know how devastating the disease can be. My grandmother had Alzheimer’s and every stage was painful and extremely difficult for her and for my mother, who was her only child. From the paranoid fears that someone had come into her apartment and moved everything around to the point at which she did not know my mother or any of her grandchildren, Alzheimer’s was cruel, heartless and eventually fatal.

I’ve been aware of recent studies that show regular exercise, both for your body and your brain, can help reduce your odds of developing Alzheimer’s, and it’s one of the many reasons that I keep up regular workouts and read whenever I get a chance.

Now research also shows that parents can do one better by helping children start writing, playing mentally challenging games, and reading early in life. This can help prevent the development of amyloid plaques, which is the protein build-up in the brain that causes much of the destruction of Alzheimer’s.

Experts say that amyloid plaques may start to accumulate in the brain a long time before Alzheimer’s symptoms begin to appear, so efforts to prevent their accumulation in the first place could have a dramatic effect.

Since reading, writing and playing games are desirable goals for all of us, starting in childhood and continuing throughout life, the findings may be pure motivation to keep it up. And I know that I want to do everything I can to prevent Alzheimer’s for my children and me. It’s a disease that no one should have to deal with.


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