The frequency of Alzheimer’s and early cognitive decline varies widely around the world. The highest rates are observed in the West and more particularly in the United States.
The diet is the main cause for explaining this situation. When a population migrates to the United States and adopts its diet, its Alzheimer’s rate increases rapidly, whatever its origin.
The Japanese have westernized their diet over the last 50 years, with the consequences: a longevity that caps and a frequency Alzheimer’s that explodes
The example of Japan is even more glaring: long protected from the western way of life and multiple world champions of longevity, the Japanese have westernized their diet over the last 50 years, with the consequences: a longevity that caps and a frequency Alzheimer’s that explodes (1)!
Similar analyzes conducted in countries previously protected from Alzheimer’s (Nigeria, Brazil, China, Egypt …) lead to the same conclusions: the adoption of the American diet, more commonly called “junk food”, already largely involved in Metabolic syndrome is one of the keys to cognitive decline.
Only survivors of this trend, may be temporarily, some populations in Africa or India still far from the Western way of life.
In the Western diet, the over consumption of meat, animal fats and sugars, which accelerates the glycation reaction, is directly implicated in the increasing decline of cognitive functions.
The mastery of the decline of cognitive functions will come through the widespread adoption of the principle expressed 25 centuries ago by Hippocrates: “Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food”.
(1): WB Grant. Using Multicountry Ecological and Observational Studies to Determine Dietary Risk Factors for Alzheimer’s Disease. Journal of American College of Nutrition, vol 35, 2016.
Photo ; nathanpask⠀
