Apr 18 2008
Quit smoking and drinking to get rid of Alzheimer’s
Apr 18: Several researches have revealed the adverse effects of smoking and drinking habits. A US research has exposed the influence of smoking and drinking habits in raising Alzheimer’s risk. According to an estimate in the UK at least 700,000 people are suffering from dementia. The research found that heavy drinkers and chain smokers are more prone to Alzheimer’s, almost six to seven years earlier than those teetotallers and non-smokers.
The findings of the research were presented at the meeting of American Academy of Neurology, it considered 900 people who are over 60 years of age and have the high risk gene. The study gains significance as the delay in inception of Alzheimer’s disease by five years will lead to a 50 per cent drop in the number of cases.
Those who take more than two drinks a day and smoke more than 20 cigarettes a day are more exposed to early onset of Alzheimer’s. People who have specific gene named APOE variant 4 are also likely to get affected by Alzheimer’s. Smoking, drinking and gene variant are the three main factors that beckon Alzheimer’s 8.5 years earlier than the normal case.
According to the lead of the study, Dr Ranjan Duara of Mount Sinai Medical Center in Florida: “To keep Alzheimer’s at bay it is better to quit smoking and drinking, by doing so one can hold-up the risk of Alzheimer’s and can effectively reduce the number of Alzheimer’s cases.”
Another US research found that high cholesterol level in early 40s will also increase the Alzheimer’s risk by one and a half time. This study considered 9,700 men and women and it found that those with high cholesterol level that is over six millimols per litre (mmol/L) are exposed to the risk of Alzheimer’s.
“In spite of diabetes, late-life stroke, high blood pressure and obesity; high mid-life cholesterol will increase the risk of Alzheimer’s a great deal,” said the researcher Alina Solomon.
The ideal way to get rid of the risk posed by Alzheimer’s is by practising healthy diet by including foods that are rich in antioxidants and vitamins and by doing regular exercise.
[…] May 16: As an innovative attempt to check smoking habit a Japanese company has developed a vending machine that could identify age of a person by counting skin sags and wrinkles. This gadget will make use of face recognition technology to restrict anyone under the age of 20 buying cigarettes. […]