STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
You’ve heard of a colonoscopy. But have you heard of a cognoscopy?
“Everyone should have a cognoscopy, just like everyone gets a colonoscopy when they turn 50,” an expert on Alzheimer’s Disease told a full house Thursday night at Ketchum’s Church of the Big Wood.
“And it’s a lot more pleasant than a colonoscopy,” added Dr. Dale Bredesen.
Bredesen’s cognoscopy involves blood work, genetic tests and more to identify whether a person has any of 36 causes that Bredesen has identified as contributing to Alzheimer’s. Treating problems with diet, exercise and even taking B12 can slow, even reverse Alzheimer’s, Bredesen said.
“You have a window of about 10 years to address problems before things go bad so it’s to your advantage to get tested early,” he said. “If you have Alzheimer’s in the family, you should get your children tested at least by the time they turn 45.”
Bredesen, who was St. Luke’s Wood River Foundation’s 2018 Health and Wellness Speaker, has written a New York Times bestseller titled “The End of Alzheimer’s” that outlines 36 factors, including micronutrients, hormone levels, stress, and sleep quality that can trigger Alzheimer’s.
Hundreds of patients have displayed significant improvement following a protocol developed to treat the disease, said Bredesen, director of the Easton Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research.
Bredesen told the audience that Alzheimer’s has been one of medicine’s biggest failures.
“Everyone knows a cancer survivor, but no one knows an Alzheimer’s survivor,” he said.
That’s changing with the research he and others are doing, he said.
“Just as years ago we found out it was important to know your cholesterol and now your LDL and HDL levels, so there are other things you need to know. These things will tell you your risk for cognitive decline,” he said.
“No one should get cognitive decline,” he added. “It should be rare, yet in Britain it’s the No. 1 cause of death. We’re dying of 21st century diseases because we’re practicing 20th century medicine. We’ve been using checker strategies for a chess match.”
Bredesen said a host of things can contribute to Alzheimer’s, including insulin resistance, mercury, toxins, pathogens, bad nutrition, Lyme disease, a leaky gut, head trauma, a compromised vascular system, stress and genetics—namely, the ApoE4 gene.
“The good news is it’s not thousands of possible causes,” he said.
Tests look at inflammation, hormones, toxins, gut health and blood-brain barriers.
“Pre-diabetes is a key risk factor,” he said, adding that Alzheimer’s has often been called Type 3 Diabetes.
Bredesen recounted how one of his patients was a mother who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at 62. She’d couldn’t navigate the freeway or remember what she read. She was unable to remember four-digit numbers. She had amyloid proteins in her brain.
Six years later, following his protocol, she is doing great, although she declined in 10 days when she went off it.
A 70-year-old man with 12 years of accelerating memory loss was unable to remember lock combinations. He saw improvement within three to six months.
A 66-year-old man whose parents died of Alzheimer’s was able to return to work full time a year after he started treatment.
Part of the treatment involves a plant-rich ketogenic diet calling for 10 to 15 servings of non-starchy vegetables a day, healthy fats such as nuts, seeds and olive oil, lean protein such as legumes and cold-water low-mercury fish and low glycemic fruit, such as berries.
It’s important to heal the gut with prebiotics and probiotics. And stem cells can be employed if necessary.
“Nutrition is way more important than we were taught in med school,” Bredesen said. “Living here is a fantastic advantage because everyone out here is exercising.”
Drug companies recently announced they may have a medication that clears toxic amyloid proteins from the brain and slow a patient’s rate of mental decline.
But treating Alzheimer’s is not a one-size-fits-all proposition that can be solved by taking a pill, Bredesen said. There are at least six different types of Alzheimer’s and most patients have more than one type with each type having several factors needing to be addressed.
What works for Alzheimer’s may help other neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s Disease, he added.
Tests to determine risk factors costs less than 1 percent of what it costs for a year in a nursing home, he said. And the price tag has decreased from $1,300 to $499.
“Fees will get better as people see they can prevent the disease,” he promised “The later you diagnose it, the harder it is to reverse it.”
Locally, he said, Dr. Maria Maricich is trained in his protocols and offering the cognoscopy he refers to.
Maricich noted that Alzheimer’s is now the third leading cause of death in America and women are twice as likely to develop it as men.
“In fact, a woman in her 60s has a one-in-six chance of getting Alzheimer’s, while she has a one-in-11 chance of getting breast cancer,” she said.
Symptoms, to look for, she said, includes general fatigue, constipation or digestion issues, apathy or depression, change in personality, memory loss, difficulty with learning or concentration and confusion.
“Alzheimer’s like all degenerative disease begins many, many years before there are any diagnosable signs,” she added.
ON THE HORIZON:
St. Luke’s Wood River Foundation is working to bring a pediatrician to the community, Director Megan Tanous told those attending Thursday’s lecture. The Foundation is also working to fund breast MRI technology and a compassionate care.