Avoiding Alzheimer’s
I NEVER PURCHASED long-term-care insurance, even though the personal finance magazine I wrote for in the 1990s often recommended it. To the magazine’s editors, it seemed like another logical step in retirement preparation. I had two reasons to decide against it, however.
First, it seemed a huge expense. We were advised to buy it around age 60, long before any presumed decline. I was younger than that and unprepared to pay hundreds a month for decades when I didn’t know if I’d ever use the coverage.
Second, I simply don’t want to end up in a nursing home. Why, I wondered, would I buy an insurance policy designed to pay my way there?
I realize, of course, that I’m playing with fire. That’s why I take so much interest in behaviors that may ward off Alzheimer’s disease, one of the greatest reasons that people find themselves in nursing homes.
Alzheimer’s can begin with simple memory loss and builds to the point where people can’t manage their lives. It affects nearly seven million Americans and its incidence is growing. If current trends continue, as many as 13 million Americans will suffer from the disease by 2050, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
For many years I have roughly followed the Mediterranean diet, which is rich in olive oil, fresh fruits and vegetables. That diet is associated with a 23% lower incidence of dementia among Europeans who follow it closely.
I also exercise five or six days a week, as vigorous people have a lower incidence of Alzheimer’s, too. I like to run but, when it gets too hot, I swim at my gym. I also began lifting weights last year at the recommendation of a friend who’s in his 80s and doing well.
These efforts of mine take time and energy, and even if I follow them religiously there’s no guarantee I’d avoid the dementia. That’s why I was so interested to learn of new research that suggests that a drug already on the pharmacist’s shelf might lower the incidence of Alzheimer’s dramatically.
Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic sifted through the medical records of thousands of Medicare patients to see if men taking sildenafil—the active ingredient in the drug Viagra—lowered the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease. The surprising answer is yes, though the researchers caution that the findings need to be confirmed by randomized clinical trials.
Still, the preliminary findings seem remarkable. In one medical records database, men who had taken sildenafil had 30% lower incidences of Alzheimer’s disease than the general population. In a second database of patients, the reduction in the occurrence of Alzheimer’s was 54%. You can read the research paper here.
In my limited understanding, the drug appears to increase blood flow into the neural pathways of the brain. That, in turn, may clear out some of the metabolic waste that collects over time, reducing brain function as we age.
It’s too soon for doctors to prescribe Viagra to treat Alzheimer’s prophylactically (pun intended). Yet if the research findings are confirmed, this off-label application could become the biggest reason to prescribe it.
This has happened once before. Viagra was originally formulated to treat chest pain. Research trials showed it didn’t reduce the incidence of angina. But male test subjects did report a surprising side-effect: long-lasting erections. Here’s hoping the drug has a second unexpected use.
The post Avoiding Alzheimer’s appeared first on HumbleDollar.
