New study reveals Alzheimer’s gets a frighteningly early start (here’s how you can fight it)

Not much truly shocks me anymore. But this new study did.

It showed that symptoms of Alzheimer’s can appear in people as young as age 20. That’s right…20.

This unprecedented finding suggests that the disease starts to eat away at the brain up to half a century before acute symptoms develop. And it’s turned conventional scientific knowledge on its ear. Previously, the consensus was that damage to the brain began occurring just 15 or 20 years before disease onset.

But researchers from Northwestern University in Chicago examined the brains of elderly people with and without Alzheimer’s, as well as samples taken from 13 people between the ages of 20 and 66.

The tests showed that beta-amyloid, the toxic protein that clogs up the brain in Alzheimer’s, had started building up in people as young as 20.

Sadly (yet predictably), this discovery has already led “experts” to raise the prospect of giving Alzheimer’s drugs to people in the very earliest stages. Great idea. Start giving people ineffective, side-effect-riddled Alzheimer’s drugs before they’re even legal drinking age.

Here’s a better strategy: take all the advice I’ve given about keeping your brain healthy, and start it TODAY. Tell your kids and grandkids to do the same. To access the previous Reality Health Checks I’ve sent about preventing Alzheimer’s and protecting your brain, enter “Alzheimer’s” in the search function at the top of the page.

Source:

“Early signs of Alzheimer’s disease found in patients as young as 20: ‘Unprecedented’ findings say disease eats away at cells 50 years before symptoms develop,” Daily Mail, 3/2/15