When Dr. Christopher Maloney found himself forgetting last names, he thought it was the fulfillment of his adolescent diagnosis of early Alzheimer's disease. But when he went looking at the studies, what he found was that we're in an earthquake of change around memory loss. We are redefining how it occurs, why it occurs, and even the definition of what Alzheimer's disease truly means.
The resulting search led Dr. Maloney to write a short, simple book about a complex and unexplained subject, the human memory. He goes through the large studies, the small studies, the testing, the labs, and the simple things you can do for yourself to keep your memories.
Genre: HEALTH & FITNESS / Diseases / Alzheimer's & DementiaJust published
Unlike many diseases, the majority of memory researchers agree that Alzheimer’s disease (dementia is too broad a term for genetics) is almost entirely not genetic. But for a select few, their genes do increase their risk.
The unlucky few have one of a small number of genes that increase their risk of Alzheimer’s disease. These include APP, PS-1, PS-2, and APOE4. I’m sure there are more, and those of you who have one of these genes have our sympathy.
So sorry you’ve got the genes of doom.
Except that having one of these genes does not mean you will get Alzheimer’s disease. It just increases your risk.
Take the most common of the genes, APOE4. The Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN) monitors patients with this gene. They found that young people with the gene had more amyloid plaque formation earlier in their lives.[i]
Which is bad, but doesn’t necessarily mean they will develop early dementia. Amyloid plaques don’t directly correspond with memory loss.
[i] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30530186
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Portuguese
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Translation in progress.
Translated by Vitoria Ferreira
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Spanish
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Already translated.
Translated by Marcelo Paz
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