Where did I put my keys?

You know the feeling, you’ve put your key’s, book, or life down somewhere and just can’t find it, you get to the top of the stairs to only wonder what on earth you are there for! You ring your phone at least once a week to help you find it and hope you didn’t leave it on silent!

Could this be an early indication that you are potentially going to have Alzheimer’s Disease in the future?

I’m seeing increasing numbers of clients with Alzheimer’s Disease and with research showing its affecting more and more people.

Is it age or is it our lifestyle which leads to Alzheimer’s Disease and increasingly the research is linking our diets and lifestyles as key factors.

When you have Alzheimer’s Disease there is a decreased cognitive function and lapses in memory these slowly decline and in time it affects the ability to carry out everyday life.

Currently with no known cure in medicine, what is on offer is being shown to be on the whole ineffective, looking after yourself and prevention is absolutely the key to ensuring this disease state is one that you avoid because currently it’s thought that by the time you are showing the symptoms that much of the damage has already occurred. The thinking currently is that much of that damage is sadly irreversible.

With high intakes of refined foods, sugar, diets that are omega 6 rich, low fat diets that have avoided saturated fats, and not enough fruit and vegetables eaten, and little if no exercise, is it any wonder the body is showing signs of ageing disgracefully! Add that to the stress we suffer from constantly, lack of sleep, wifi, and the drinking of tea or fizzy drinks most of our days, is it any wonder that we are suffering from our modern day diet?

Our diets are a cognitive disaster if you look at it from that point of view, and we have seen the brain for so long as independent of the body, and we haven’t considered the impact of what we eat on a moment by moment basis affects our brains. Only when we don’t have the capacity any more do others around us start to review what we are doing, find that there is no current solution via medicine and review our diets.

Our body will do everything to keep the heart and brain functioning and our major organ systems, just consider that, despite all we do to it, our body’s are amazing in how they function despite our lifestyles. We continually expect it to carry on and carry on, giving us energy, vitality, memory, concentration, movement etc, but the brain with our general lifestyle suffers as a result of our diet that is at odds with what we should be eating and drinking.

Research shows that the brain is as susceptible to metabolic and environmental issues as the rest of the body, in fact it’s very susceptible, due to it’s need for oxygen, and the right fatty acids.

Environmental factors in research are show to increase the risk for developing Alzheimer’s Disease something I hope many of you are doing something about. Their damaging effects are compounded by the refined carbohydrate consumption we tend to eat, and the imbalance of Omega 6 to 3 ratio, never mind that most of the population only eat 2 portions of vegetables a day, and don’t hydrate themselves effectively, and so have a massive lack of nutrients and antioxidants and ability to metabolise them.

Considering now how much fuel some of us are putting into our body’s it should come as food for thought that our brains usage of glucose reduces when it has this condition. So the fuel is there but it can’t use it. The brain normally has a high usage of glucose fuel, it uses around 20 percent of the body’s glucose and oxygen, we are always working to feed our brains, you can imagine that as it reduces it’s ability to consume, it is likely to have cognitive affects. These affects tend to be in localised areas hence the reason for memory loss, and learning issues. I come across few people who tell me they have a good memory, it’s always one of my key questions, what’s your concentration, short and long term memory like? Because I’m looking for signs which can be detected now, not when it’s becoming a factor which can’t be reversed. We consider this one of the signs of ageing, but I don’t think this needs to be the case if you are focusing on your diet. The earlier the memory and concentration issues are happening the younger the decline overall is likely to happen, and how quickly or aggressively it’s likely to happen.

So looking after your brain sooner rather than later in my mind is a no brainer! The body will do everything to keep the heart and brain functioning….think about that just for one moment. It’s a deep issue when you are starting to get cognitive issues.

Now why is our refined diet such a problem, it’s because, Insulin plays a role in cognitive functioning, and it’s shown to improve performance on tests of memory and cognition, but on the other side of this, chronically elevated insulin levels have the opposite effect. Therefore better glycemic control has been correlated to better cognitive performance. Focusing on your diet is key, because Alzheimer’s comes on over time and one of the likeliest culprits is your diet:

Eat