If Auguste Deter, the first patient diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, were alive today, medicine would offer her exactly what Alois Alzheimer did 115 years ago. Nothing.

In early 2018, the pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced that it was stopping research for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/research/care-and-cure-research-magazine/pfizer-dementia-drug The drugs with the highest profits for pharmaceutical companies in America are those for Alzheimer’s and dementia. Public funds, insurance companies, and the families of patients have been paying billions for many years now. The disease, however, is incurable!

Dementia drugs only benefit pharmaceutical companies.

Research and testing for the production of drugs that would stop this terrible disease could be a good excuse. However, more than 99.6% of Alzheimer’s drug trials over the last 15 years have failed. They have failed and continue to fail, with tragic consequences for patients.

In November 2018, Richard E. Kennedy, M.D., in the Journal of the American Medical Association, evaluating pharmaceutical treatments for dementia, found, among other things, cognitive decline in patients! https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2712175 .

Expenditure on Alzheimer’s disease medication is seven times higher than the expenditure and prices for cancer drugs. Dementia, in all its forms, is the most expensive disease. In America alone, 200 billion dollars are spent every year on its “treatment.” Public government spending in the US for cancer research is ten times greater than that for Alzheimer’s and dementia (likely because those suffering from dementia lose any ability to advocate for themselves). And yet, deaths from cancer and Alzheimer’s are approximately equal in number. As a consequence of the lifestyle of recent decades, as well as the increase in life expectancy, every three seconds a person is diagnosed with dementia (three out of four are women).

We take out the trash at night.

The pharmaceutical industry spent billions trying to block the production of amyloid beta protein, aiming to stop the formation of amyloid plaques and cure Alzheimer’s disease. However, according to Maiken Nedergaard, M.D. (D.M.Sc., co-director of the Center for Translational Neuromedicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center), “this did not work at all! Simply because it is not a production problem, but a cleaning problem” (interview with DW).

Maiken Nedergaard, researching among other things the relationship between sleep and Alzheimer’s disease, established the role of glial cells in clearing the brain of amyloid protein and healing neurons. “Sleep is critical for the functioning of the brain’s waste removal system.” https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/labs/nedergaard/news.aspx.

Our brain cleanses itself and “takes out the trash” during sleep, channeling it through the bloodstream for recycling, specifically to the liver. This flow is more efficient during deep sleep. The deeper we sleep, the better we clear the brain. This does not occur with the use of sleeping pills, as sedative medications are actually a factor in the onset of Alzheimer’s. The brain is so busy during the day that it doesn’t have time to take the trash out. “This, perhaps, is the reason for our fundamental biological need for sleep.”

In the aforementioned study, Maiken Nedergaard and her colleagues state: “These findings also add to the growing clear evidence that sleep quality or sleep deprivation can predict the onset of Alzheimer’s and dementia!”

As many of our fellow human beings discover, as the years go by, the quality of their sleep is not good. Our brain treats the “trash” as something foreign, reacts, and over time destroys nerve cells. Poor sleep can increase the levels of catabolic hormones, which are responsible for energy production. We know that the cortisol produced, in combination with low glycogen levels, can convert amino acids into adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the relationship of which with Alzheimer’s is being researched. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25261448/ .

Sleep is the best health insurance!

Genetic predisposition increases the chances of developing dementia by a single-digit percentage. It is possible to detect this predisposition or even early signs of the disease many years in advance. Through epigenetics (above genetics), our choices, and our lifestyle, we can deactivate or activate our genes (regulation of gene expression or gene regulation). Our biological age (phenotypic or epigenetic age) is extended if we maintain a lower body weight, avoid sugar in all its forms, exercise, manage stress, and, of course, protect our sleep.

Of the four pillars that build our health—nutrition, exercise, stress management, and sleep—the most fundamental is sleep.

Sleep, darkness, fatigue, and fasting align so that our biological clock can organize and temporarily control the individual organs of our body. Our biological clock is located behind the optic nerve and is influenced by light. However, most organs in our body fail to synchronize and do not follow during sleep when we eat excessively or drink alcohol. Carbohydrates, sugar, elevated insulin levels from continuous food intake, and obesity confuse our body. Naturally, poor and insufficient sleep lowers leptin levels and increases the appetite for food, leading to a vicious cycle.

Melatonin is the hormone that accompanies us into sleep at night! Just a little light is enough to reduce it dramatically. Light and the conveniences of electricity are destroying the sleep of many people. Conversely, in the morning, the cessation of melatonin is followed by high levels of cortisol. Exercise and exposure to the sun in the morning synchronize our biological clock in the best possible way. https://www.thensf.org/what-is-a-circadian-rhythm/ .

We are changing fuel for performance and longevity.

Dementia and Alzheimer’s are not a problem of the brain, but a problem of the human body. If our diet includes sugar and is based on carbohydrates, it is most likely that we have an increased body fat percentage and insulin resistance. It is highly likely that we are in a prediabetic stage or suffering from type 2 diabetes. Smoking, soft drinks, pasta and rice, and alcohol increase inflammation in the body and the brain. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/03/insulin-signaling-failures-in-the-brain-linked-to-alzheimers-disease/ .

Our brain requires more energy than any other organ in our body, and when the fuel for this energy is poor, the resulting output is problematic! Intermittent fasting (IF), obtaining carbohydrates from vegetables and salads, and a healthy ketogenic diet provide ketones, the ideal fuel for energy production in the human body and the brain.

Use it or lose it.

As the decades of a person’s life add up, the brain tends to shrink. This is reversible! In combination with diet, exercise, stress management, and sleep, an active and productive life yields impressive results.

Far from retirement and resignation, continuing a career or starting a new one keeps the brain and the body as a whole thriving.

Coordination activities such as dancing, learning a new language, or playing a musical instrument open new “pathways” and neural connections. Changes in our habits, routine, and movements, along with reading and writing, have immediate results. Practice follows the mind!

https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/can-you-grow-new-brain-cells .

Dimitris Koutsonikas is an insurance agent, representative of 4U Insurance Consultants, and an economist.