Why We Can and Must Focus on Preventing Alzheimer's

By David Perlmutter
New research shows that our diet has a significant impact on our neurological health. But why aren't doctors acting to prevent diseases like Alzheimer's, rather than only treating them? David Perlmutter, author of the new book The Grain Brain, on the need to change our approach to healthcare.     

Last week, a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine showed how levels of blood sugar directly relate to risk for dementia. The investigation followed over 2,000 elderly individuals for an average of 6.8 years and found that even small elevations of blood sugar translated into a significant increased risk for dementia, even among persons without diabetes.

The implications of this report are profound. While the correlation of dementia risk, and specifically Alzheimer's disease, with diabetes has been established, this new finding throws a much wider net in terms of defining an at risk population for an incurable brain disorder. But despite the potential public health impact of these findings, this correlation received almost no media attention.

The Unites States has now been granted the distinction of ranking first in terms of increased number of deaths from neurological diseases including dementia. In a recent report in the journal Public Health, Professor Colin Pritchard and colleagues from Britain's Bournemouth University evaluated causes of death in the ten largest Western countries between 1979 and 2010. During that time period, deaths in America related to brain conditions rose an astounding 66% in men and 92% in women.

These compelling statistics are supported by what we've recently learned about monetary expenditures for caring for dementia-afflicted patients. In a recent RAND study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, costs for dementia care in 2010 were estimated to be as high as $200 billion, roughly twice that expended for heart disease and almost triple what was spent on treating cancer patients.

These figures, as well as the staggering statistics that in America there are currently 5.4 million Alzheimer's disease patients with that number poised to double by the year 2030, provide enticement for pharmaceutical companies to develop drug strategies to cure or at least slow the inexorable mental decline characteristic of this disease. As yet, they have failed, miserably. Indeed, as reported in a recent issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, the latest and perhaps most promising drug treatment for Alzheimer's disease not only failed to halt the disease, but actually worsened functional ability while increasing the risk for infection and skin cancers.