In a new study, researchers develop an integrated method for the effective prevention of Alzheimer’s disease.
The integrated approach uses daily exercise, healthy diets, oriental practices such as QiGong along with meditation, and social life to prevent the disease.
These elements of a healthy style of life are supplemented with the use of reliable biomarkers for early detection of this disease that allows the detection of Alzheimer up to 20 years before symptoms appear.
The research was conducted by a team at the International Center for Biomedicine.
One of the major puzzles in medical research and public health systems worldwide is Alzheimer’s disease (AD), reaching nowadays a prevalence of nearly 50 million people.
AD is a multifactorial brain disorder characterized by progressive cognitive impairment, apathy, and mood disorders.
The main risk of AD is aging. Studies suggest that AD is a break from normal aging with changes in the powerful functional capacities of neurons as well as in the mechanisms of neuronal protection.
There are factors that are determinants of the functional losses during aging, an important part is played by epigenetic components.
Thus, the action of genes that confer susceptibility to AD can be mitigated with healthy lifestyles, physical exercise, balanced nutrition, avoiding molecules harmful to health and drugs.
An active social life and practicing activity during the latter years of aging, to achieve health in advanced age.
In the study, the team suggests that a rational integration of all these factors exert a preventive action against neuronal degeneration in AD providing a better quality of life.
Prevention, as well as innovative screening programs for early detection of the disease using reliable biomarkers, are becoming critical to control the disease.
AD is a clear break with normal aging, and understanding this process requires a system of a biology-based approach.
In addition, the failure of traditional pharmacological treatments and search for new drugs has stimulated the emergence of nutraceutical compounds in the context of a “multitarget” therapy, as well as non-pharmacological approaches shown to be effective in aging, and applied to AD control.
An integrated approach involving all these preventive factors combined with novel multitarget therapeutic approaches should pave the way for the future control of the disease.
One author of the study is Prof. Ricardo Maccioni.
The study is published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.
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