Can we delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease?

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Neurodegenerative disease whose causes are still poorly understood, Alzheimer's affects 1.2 million people in France, and it is estimated that one in two French people know someone affected, with 250,000 diagnoses each year.

On the occasion of World Day Against Alzheimer's Disease, Monday, the doctor and columnist of Europe 1 Jimmy Mohamed presents studies showing that, if we do not know the reasons for its appearance, our behavior and our lifestyle would have consequences on it.

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Symptomless lesions: the behavior hypothesis

The study launched in 2013 by the ICM, the Brain and Spinal Cord Institute of Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière in Paris, is for example one of the first in the world to follow "healthy subjects at risk, in the aim to identify the triggers of Alzheimer's disease ".

The institute recruited 318 elderly people who had no memory problems. "Five years later, 88 of them have MRI lesions typical of Alzheimer's disease. Except that only 15 of them they have developed symptoms, which means that you may have lesions in the brain, but not necessarily symptoms, "explains Dr. Jimmy Mohamed, who makes the following hypothesis:" Maybe he is something is happening in our behavior "which explains this trigger.

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Another very famous American study presents the case of Sister Mary.

"Sister Mary lived to be 101 years old with intact, integral intellectual capacities. She was perfectly coherent, no dementia. Then she donated her body to science and, in a brain biopsy, it was realized that she had very significant lesions from Alzheimer's disease, "says Jimmy Mohamed, without however having triggered the slightest symptom.

We must then take an interest in Sister Mary's way of life: "She continued to teach mathematics until the age of 84. Which also means that our behavior can, perhaps, influence the natural evolution of this. disease, ”he summarizes.

40% of dementias could be prevented

In addition, some risk factors for the disease can be easily avoided, as analyzed by researchers at University College London in a study published in

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Alzheimer's disease represents the majority of dementias in humans, but "40% of dementias could be delayed or avoided through simple actions. It is almost the same risk factors as those that are practiced to avoid a heart attack or a cerebrovascular accident. It is first of all arterial hypertension, diabetes, obesity, inactivity, the fact of having few social relations with the others ", lists our columnist.

"Tobacco, too, because nicotine causes what is called permeability of the blood-brain barrier on your brain," which is the barrier that protects the brain from the outside environment.

"Nicotine makes this barrier permeable and toxins will enter your brain and can give you Alzheimer's disease - and other conditions, of course."

Among other risk factors, "having repeated head injuries. We know that soldiers, especially those who had returned from Afghanistan following numerous head injuries, had more Alzheimer's disease than others. The same goes for American footballers and boxers ".

But also "the consumption of alcohol, which will put your brain and neurons to sleep and cause your brain to atrophy. And finally exposure to pollution".

To support research, it is possible to make a donation to the Alzheimer Foundation, a donation that is 66% tax deductible.