Oh science — we’re totally ready for another super large breakthrough.
Like a cure for cancer, or aids… or even dementia!
According to a new study, there is some evidence that protection from dementia can be found grouped in families!
This means one of the possible answers could be that they’re being shielded by genetics, and that learning more about the genes may be the key that will one day help protect the rest of us from dementia.
They tested 277 male veterans who had no signs of dementia, looked for levels of a substance called C-reactive protein in the men’s blood. High levels of this seems to correspond with dementia, so they’re thinking that the men with high levels of it but NO signs of dementia must have something special going on.
So they also interviewed 1,329 of their family members!
They found that the rates of dementia in the families of patients who showed resistance was LOWER!
Still, C-reactive proteins are not ALWAYS linked to dementia, so the findings in a study like this need to be reproduced in other studies before we go nuts over it.
Here’s what a professor of neurology had to say:
“This study provides one more piece of evidence that ‘the cure’ may be staring at us from the faces of these survivors, if we could only make out specifically what it was. It also gives us further reason to be optimistic that a cure is not impossible… nature seems to have already found a way.”
That would be incredible!
So what can we do in the meantime?
“All the research being done on dementia may one day help us to understand it better, but for now, there are basic recommendations to reduce one’s risk: do not use tobacco, maintain a strictly normal weight (BMI under 25), exercise regularly, eat a diet high in vegetables and fruits, stay engaged in the community.”
Live healthy!
(Which we should be doing anyway!)
Go science!
[Image via AP Images.]
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