By that, I mean that this week's charity event is the Alzheimer's Association Memory Walk. Saturday's weather is looking good for this one, thankfully.
I was surfing around the Alzheimer's sites on the web, looking to see if there were any useful tips I might be able to pass along. I was prompted by a news item that I saw earlier this week: Eating fish regularly delays dementia, which is popular-press speak for the Archives of Neurology's Fish Consumption and Cognitive Decline With Age in a Large Community Study.
(One of the things that I thought was interesting was that the study participants were specifically asked about "tuna fish sandwich, fish sticks/fish cakes/fish sandwich, [and] fresh fish as a main dish." As far as I know, tuna is only moderate in omega-3 fatty acids, and pollock, the usual fish-stick fish, is on the low side*. This is addressed in the study conclusion: "Further study is needed to determine whether fat composition is the relevant dietary constituent.")
I found another site that I thought was really good: Alzheimer's Disease Education & Referral Center from NIH's National Institue on Aging. If you have any curiosity about what's going on in the brain, check out Alzheimer's Disease: Unraveling the Mystery. I've mentioned before how difficult it is to make scientific information accessible to lay people without losing the science; here's an example where it is done well.
I am firmly in the ounce-of-prevention camp, so I looked to the news from the Alzheimer's Association International Conference on Prevention of Dementia held this past summer. In a nutshell:
To prevent Alzheimer's, current research suggests you should:
-Stay socially and mentally active
-Eat a low-fat diet of whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and fish, with moderate alcohol consumption
-Maintain a healthy weight and engage in regular exercise
Never heard those before, eh?
And finally, why care? If health itself doesn't grab your interest, there is always economics.
* I did remember it right. Here's a citation: http://www.med.umich.edu/umim/clinical/pyramid/fish.htm
Posted by Nic at October 14, 2005 02:44 PM | TrackBack