Alzheimer’s Halted With This Simple Habit

Alzheimer’s has been considered unavoidable and incurable by the traditional medical system.

But now, a new study from the University of San Francisco challenges that idea. It has been published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia, the journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.

It reveals a simple and easy habit that prevents Alzheimer’s from progressing, even for those who have all markers of Alzheimer’s.

Before diving into the details of the study, we must first understand how thinking happens in your brain.

Your nervous system consists of nerve cells, also called neurons. For any activity in your nervous system to take place, neurons must be able to communicate with each other.

The place where they communicate—and the structure through which they communicate—is called a synapse. Synapses convey electrical or chemical signals from one neuron to another, allowing your nervous system to perform its various activities, like thinking.

Many researchers believe that Alzheimer’s disease occurs when a protein called amyloid accumulates in your brain. This amyloid then attracts another protein called tau, and the accumulation of these two proteins together destroys both synapses and neurons.

One of the authors of this new study previously performed research showing that the relationship between these two proteins—as well as their ability to destroy your nerve cells—can be diminished by maintaining the ability of your synapses to function.

So how does one do this?

We don’t have to do it through medication or surgery, thank heavens. Our bodies already have proteins that can do this for us.

But if we have proteins that can preserve proper functioning in our synapses and thereby fight off amyloid and tau, then why do people still get dementia and Alzheimer’s disease?

This is what the new study tries to answer. These researchers wanted to investigate whether physical exercise could increase the levels of proteins in our brains that promote synaptic integrity and improve communication between our neurons.

They used information on 404 now-deceased people originally collected by the Rush Memory and Aging Project.

The participants wore an accelerometer a few times per year to monitor their levels of physical activity. In addition, after their deaths, the researchers examined their brain tissue to find proteins that facilitate synaptic integrity.

The researchers were then able to compare the amount of exercise they performed with the levels of healthy proteins in their brains.

They reached two interesting conclusions:

1. The elderly people who were physically active had a lot more of these healthy proteins in their brains than the inactive ones had.

2. This was true even for people who had plenty of the toxic proteins that are normally associated with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Therefore, even if your brain accumulates the proteins usually associated with Alzheimer’s disease, your cognition can remain intact if you do physical exercise, which promotes the proteins that facilitate synaptic connections between your neurons. Therefore, exercise promotes successful thinking.

But another weapon is even more powerful against Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. This one loads your brain with a free ingredient essential to good brain function…