The month of June every year is observed as the Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness month is known. The main objective behind this is to increase awareness about Alzheimer’s disease or AD and dementia etc and encourage brain health foods among people.
What is Alzheimer’s disease?
A progressive brain disorder that slowly destroys memory and thinking cells and affects a person’s ability to carry out even easy activities is Alzheimer’s disease or AD. The shocking piece of information is that AD is responsible for 70% to 80% of dementia cases. The 3 important stages of AD are early or mild stage, middle or moderate stage and late or severe stage.
There are various causes for getting affected by AD and these are age, genetics, lifestyle, environmental factors etc.
Frequently overlooked health issues in us that can result in cognitive decline are
Hearing loss:
There are chances of increased cognitive workload and social isolation when we do not treat hearing loss in us. These two could lead to dementia in us. It is worthy to note here that regular hearing tests coupled with hearing aid use would improve long term cognitive function.
Type 2 diabetes:
The progression of dementia in us would become faster or accelerated if we have high levels of blood sugar in us. It must be taken into note that high blood sugar would affect our brain blood vessels and cause inflammation. Cognitive functions in us can be protected by a combination of healthy eating, exercises, medication etc. So, please be careful.
High blood pressure or hypertension:
There are high possibilities of cognitive decline if we have high or uncontrolled blood pressure or BP. The high BP would stress the blood vessels in our brain leading to restricted blood flow. This could further lead to vascular dementia and AD. So, please take care.
Depression:
These days many of us have this depression issue and it could be due to several reasons. Bitter fact is that if left untreated then we could have cognitive decline.
Sleep apnea:
The sleep apnea issue often gets overlooked and it can also lead to cognitive decline in us. It is noteworthy that having sound or deep sleep plays a huge role in memory and cognitive function in us. It is believed that early diagnosis and treatment using CPAP therapy or lifestyle adjustments etc would improve our sleep quality and cognitive function.
Obesity & metabolic syndrome:
We could get brain shrhrinkage and cognitive decline due to inflammation from obesity, insulin resistance and vascular problems. Our brain health would become better if we exercise and achieve a healthy body weight and this would lower the chances of dementia etc.
