Sugar = type 2 diabetes. Now evidence shows it is the pathway for Alzheimer’s.

Brain games help but using your hands seems to help a little more, maybe because it uses more areas of the brain and the links communicating between those regions. People who knit, crochet, or play a musical instrument also have lower dementia rates. I have wondered if typing helps too, although there's no published study that included typing. Maybe the higher education link to reduced dementia is related to typing on computer keyboards.

One branch of my family were all large boned, heavy muscled, and plump. The youngest age at death was 87 (the thin one), the oldest 99 (the heaviest one). There was no dementia. But they all were active raising gardens, canning fruits and vegetables, mowing lawns, and keeping up flower beds into their mid to late 80s.

I think also should be at the top of our list is brain games, reading or a crossword puzzle to keep our brains busy.

I completely agree with AlvaDeer on placing regular exercise at the very top of the list of things we can do to maintain physical health, mental health and quality of life as we age.

Thanks for the link Katiekate, I think I’ll pass on reading it for now as I’ve yet to see any new research that changes the fact that we’re no different than any other living thing hardwired by evolution to survive and reproduce. Survival of the species, you know?
Insects, plants, bacteria, fungi, Protozoa, parasitic viruses, genes - transposons and retrotransposons... evolution.

Sure, my choices in lifestyle, environment and genetic inheritance contribute to shaping my life but such a small amount that other than remaining active and avoiding obesity I’m not going to spend time worrying about something I’ve no control over. Not today at least! 😊

GMOs, inflammation from plaque on my teeth, air pollution, high cholesterol, head injuries, medications, excess alcohol, pesticides, heart disease, depression, sugar too!... so many decades of research and still no answers.

Age? Perhaps we’re outliving our usefulness. I’m no longer able to reproduce so I’m not furthering my species.. I’ll go with aging. Biogenic obsolescence.

There is always some new studie (because universities get PAID to do studies and professors are MADE on publishing) saying some new thing. Unless you have this as long standing medical understanding I think at the best it is just a "maybe" sort of thing. I recall when the statins first came out they said that it was cholesterol all along and that people would not get so much dementia now. Wrong. I recall when everything was about "inflammation" and once they had the key to that there would be no dementia. The truth is that we carry certain genes and the truth is that our bodies age and change and this goes for the heart pump as well as the genes. Are sugars great for us? No. Is overweight good for us? Probably not. And it is great to take as good of care of our bodies as we are able, I would put regular exercise at the very top of the list, by which I mean simple things such as walking. However, there will be no miracle cures until, like Jonas Salk's vaccine, there is one. Dementias we are just now learning even a LITTLE about; how many kinds, pre-frontal, Lewy's, vascular, parkinsonian, Alzheimer's. We are only now beginning to know what we don't know. And what we don't know is a lot. My opinion as a lifelong nurse, only, for what it is worth: maybe two cents.

Dolly it's not a given that one leads to another, just as all diabetics don't get diabetic retinopathy or have amputations not all will suffer from dementia nor will all those with dementia have any form of diabetes. There is also plenty of evidence that the classic plaques and tangles found in alz are found in people who do not show any signs of dementia - there is still much to learn.

I don't know about this. In my fathers side of the family all the men had diabetes either type 1 or 2, none had dementia. I have read that women have a much higher incidence of this disease, also women who were SAHM's I am more prone to believe this.

The link between diabetes and alzheimer's and vascular dementia has been well established for over a decade, sometimes you will hear alz described as type 3 diabetes. Google any of the terms and you will find tons of information, narrow your search to the last year to find the newest studies.

There are actually a lot of new studies out there. This is just one place to start...this publication also contains more references to additional studies...but this is a good overview with references

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2769828/

I’ve seen a few studies that might show correlation but none that support causation.

I’m sure many here would be interested in taking a look at it as Shell38314 so please post a link if you can!

Hey Katie, where did you read or hear of that study? I would love to read it! It sounds interesting!