Our age has long been associated with Alzheimer’s disease although the connection wasn’t clearly established. There had been debates on whether Alzheimer’s disease comes with age or the disease stays dormant for a long, long time—obviously taking its sweet time to blossom into full-blown. It is important to know which of the two comes first in a patient as it will be the only way to provide solution to a long-overdue problem. If it’s the latter, then even a 20-year-old is at risk to this terrible disease, given a situation that the disease be triggered by some unknown factor. However, researchers are leaning towards the former as they strongly suspect that age has something to do with it.
Alzheimer’s disease usually occurs at age 65 and quickly progresses from there on. On the other hand, those who are blessed with good genes which enabled them to live longer lives are usually without wasting diseases such as Alzheimer’s. This provided a hint to researchers that the way we age is a big factor in developing Alzheimer’s disease and it may also be the root cause of the said disease. According to recent study released by Salk Institute for Biological Studies late last year, these researchers might be on their way to successful discovery!
According to the study, by simply delaying the aging process, we could protect ourselves from the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease. Doctors who are actively participating in the study believe that this might be the key to treatment and prevention of the said disease. Furthermore, they encourage seniors to try to live a healthy lifestyle in order to maintain a biologically young age. This simply means your body should be maintained in a state wherein it’s 20 or even 30 years younger than your chronological age. And no, it doesn’t simply mean youthful looking skin, it should also come from within!
One of the marked characteristics of Alzheimer’s disease is plaques in the brain. More plaques there would signify the severity of the condition. With this study, they were able to determine why old age has something to do with it. During the course of the study, they found out that young, healthy cells were able to flush out plaques before they get the chance to accumulate. Unfortunately, aging bodies do not have the same amount of healthy cells to control these plaques from forming in the brain. In the case of lucid centenarians, it was believed that their bodies are able to process and drain away these plaques even if they are way pass the golden age as opposed to what a normal person’s body could do.
