Alzheimer’s ‘can and will be eliminated,’ researcher says

Cure is just a matter of finding the right biochemicals to target the amyloid plaques that cause the disease, explains Dr. Patrick McGeer.

Dr. Patrick McGeer and his wife and colleague, Dr. Edith McGeer, both work on Alzheimer's research for the Kinsmen Laboratory of Neurological Research at UBC.

At the age of 83, Dr. Patrick McGeer is fighting Alzheimer’s.

But not in the way you may think. He doesn’t have the disease. McGeer is fit and healthy, in mind and body.

The former British Columbia cabinet minister works as a medical researcher every day from 7:30 to 5:30, plays tennis and skis, travels widely for work and for pleasure, and maintains the same weight he had as an Olympic basketball player 63 years ago.

McGeer is fighting Alzheimer’s on behalf of the rest of us, as outspoken president and research team leader of the Canadian Dementia Action Network (CDAN).

With his talk of “eradicating the disease” and “bringing effective treatment to the bedside within five years,” he and his colleagues are clearly fighting to win. “This is a malevolent disease that can and will be eliminated,” he insists.

Article Continued Below

“We know what the target is,” McGeer explains, referring to the amyloid plaques in the brain that characterize Alzheimer’s. “We don’t know which biochemicals are going to hit the target well enough to get rid of the disease, but we know it’s going to happen. It’s not difficult from a biochemical point of view, and we should pursue it vigorously.”

If CDAN can accomplish this, he says, “there isn’t a greater contribution that Canada can make to the world — all for the cost of one F18 fighter jet.”

There are 35.6 million people living with dementia around the world — 500,000 in Canada alone, including one in eight Canadians over age 65 and one in two or three over 85. It costs Canada an estimated $50 million per day to care for dementia patients. Worldwide, the annual cost is an estimated $604 billion.

“We wouldn’t even attempt to evaluate the social tragedy,” says McGeer. “Everybody knows it’s harder on the caregiver than on the patient.”

Until one of the 90 or so drugs now being investigated — or another yet to be developed — is proven to prevent or clear the plaques and tangles of Alzheimer’s, is there anything we can do to prevent getting the disease as we age?

Not much. “There is no strong evidence showing that any modifiable factor is associated with a reduced risk of developing the disease,” reported the U.S. National Institutes of Health in April.

That’s probably because at least one out of four Alzheimer’s cases is caused by a dominant genetic mutation. It’s also possible that many more instances have some genetic link, not yet identified.

McGeer agrees there’s no hard evidence that the disease can be prevented. But, he says, there are ways you can keep your brain healthy longer. In fact, some people who were found to have the amyloid plaques of Alzheimer’s during an autopsy never showed signs of cognitive decline while alive.

“Of all the organs, the brain ages the best, but you have to look after it. There are obvious things that can and should be done.”

For example, protecting the head from injury. There’s definitive evidence that head injuries can increase the risk of dementia. Even heading soccer balls may increase the risk. A Norwegian study showed that soccer players were twice as likely to suffer from dementia as people in the general population.

And it’s certain that the risk of vascular dementia, caused by impaired circulation to the brain and, ultimately, small strokes can be significantly reduced.

How can brain health be supported, to delay or prevent neurodegenerative disease? Maintaining general good health is a start. This includes:

 A Mediterranean diet, with a variety of fruits and vegetables

 Adequate exercise

 Adequate sleep

 Managing stress

 Maintaining a normal weight

Also, because high blood pressure and diabetes can significantly increase the risk of vascular dementia, it’s important to be diagnosed, treated and monitored when these health problems arise.

In fact, all the advice about reducing the risk of heart disease and stroke also applies to reducing the risk of dementia, especially vascular dementia. But just as heart attacks can’t always be prevented, neither can dementia.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot we can do to reduce our risk of both, advises geriatric psychiatrist Stephen Kiraly. His book, Your Healthy Brain, is recommended by McGeer as the best book ever published about brain health.

“We can’t modify our genes but there’s lots of evidence that modifying risk factors can slow down Alzheimer’s,” says Kiraly. “Having a fit heart and good circulation through the body and the brain is a huge protective factor against brain disease.”

Coffee and dementia

“People who drink three cups of coffee a day are at lower risk of dementia,” says Dr. Patrick McGeer, president of the Canadian Dementia Action Network.

In 2009, a Scandinavian study found that middle-aged people who drank between three and five cups of coffee a day lowered their risk of developing Alzheimer’s and dementia by 60 to 65 per cent later in life. The study was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

McGeer says he enjoys three cups of Joe every day, maintaining that coffee is so good for the brain that he once jokingly told a group of scientists, “Starbucks has done more for Parkinson’s disease than any pharmaceutical company.”

Many studies have also shown that coffee lowers the risk for diabetes, heart disease and stroke, all bad for the brain.

This is good news for people with normal blood pressure. But coffee does contribute to hypertension, which increases the risk of heart disease and stroke.

However, some studies have shown that coffee’s effect on blood pressure is short-lived, reports Dr. Stephen Kiraly, in his book, Your Healthy Brain.

Kiraly also suggests that drinking pure cocoa is beneficial, with its high concentration of antioxidative flavonoids and far less saturated fat than is found in dark chocolate.

He quotes research showing that cocoa’s high flavonoid content and antioxidant capacity, on a per-serving basis, is four to five times stronger than black tea, two to three times stronger than green tea and almost twice as strong as red wine.

Brain training and dementia

There are conflicting studies about the value of specific brain exercises, such as puzzles, but Kiraly writes “there is overwhelming scientific evidence that mental activity protects the brain, (and that) lack of intellectual stimulation is bad for the brain.”

He says that if someone continues to be “mentally active — reading books, talking to interesting people and so forth — brain connections will continue to grow in numbers and complexity . . . vocabulary, knowledge and intellectual skills and performance will increase, not decrease, with age.”

It’s now generally believed that working at crosswords or Sudoku puzzles makes you more skilled at doing them but doesn’t necessarily prevent cognitive decline. However, a lack of the normal intellectual stimulation of everyday engagement with the world, reading and socializing, can contribute to the risk of cognitive decline.

More important than specifically exercising the brain, experts suggest, is exercising the body. Studies show people who exercise regularly in middle age are one-third as likely to get Alzheimer’s disease in their 70s as those who did not exercise. Even people who begin exercising in their 60s can reduce their risk by half.