What Is Your Alzheimer’s Disease Risk?

Find Ways to Reduce Your Risk Below.

For reference, one estimate of an American's risk of getting Alzheimer’s by the age of 100:       72%

Interpretation of Scores From the Questionnaire Below:      
or download the printer-friendly PDF version:

1. If your total score in the questionnaire is positive, indicating that you have an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s in your , you may wish to examine some of the prevention options listed in the questionnaire. A change of diet, lifestyle or toxin exposure can significantly reduce your risk of developing Alzheimer’s within your lifespan – a risk which is enhanced in your case.
2. A negative score indicates a reduced risk for Alzheimer’s, but you may also want to examine the questionnaire for further risk reduction options such as diet, lifestyle or toxin exposure reduction.
3. It is best to start on this program as early as 45. If you are over the age of 60, your risk will be doubling every five years. A more careful attention to these risk factors would be useful as a person gets older.
4. Alzheimer’s Disease in the United States is substantially preventable. For example, “age-adjusted” rates of the disease are 73 percent less in northern India than in Pennsylvania. Rates are lower in other parts of the world also. Some of the reasons for this are presented in the paper on this same website. The interaction of genetics with diet, lifestyle or toxin exposure makes the difference.

Estimating Your Risk of Developing Alzheimer’s Disease.

	Higher Risk	Lower Risk
• Are You Overweight? Click here to measure your body mass index (BMI) from the CDC chart. If it exceeds 30 BMI, you are officially overweight
1. If you are in excess of a BMI of 26, and 60 years or older, add 36 percent for every 1 extra BMI in your score. (Note: One study finds only women susceptible to Alzheimer’s risk from excess weight, likely because the men die of other obesity related disease like heart disease before the age of Alzheimer’s onset):	+_____
2. If you have been tested and carry one or more of the APOEe4 alleles, and are over 26 BMI, add 100 percent:   (For carriers of the e4 alleles, diet with excess calories and fat has been found by one study to significantly increase risk.)	+_____
3. If you have not been tested, leave “2” blank and proceed with the questionnaire.
• Parents or Siblings With Alzheimer’s? Add 100 percent:	+_____
• Aluminum Exposures:
1. Do you cook with aluminum based baking powder, eat supermarket or restaurant pancakes, waffles, corn tortillas or cornbread, biscuits and muffins? If so, add 100 percent: (Note: Calcium based baking powder does not have this problem.)	+_____
2. (Note: If you are over the age of 60 and consume a diet described in #1, you could add as much as 800 percent to the risk estimate: Aluminum is an Alzheimer’s promoter that moves forward the age of onset and speeds disease progression. See footnote 1.)
3. Do you eat American cheese, yellow cake with white icing, chocolate pudding, use chewing gum, salt with aluminum added? If so, add 50 percent:	+_____
4. Do you cook acidic food with aluminum utensils? If so, add 50 percent:	+_____
5. Do you drink beverages that are acidic or contain citrate out of aluminum cans, or make coffee in aluminum pots? If so, add 50 percent:	+_____
6. Do you use aspirin buffered with aluminum, aluminum based antacids, or medicine containing aluminum? If so, add 50 percent. (Calcium based antacids are safe, but aluminum based antacids may contain sufficient aluminum to shorten your lifespan.)	+_____
7. Does your water utility add aluminum to the water supply? If so, add 50 percent:	+_____
8. Is the water supply maintained at a pH (acidity measure) close to 7.9. If so, subtract 50 percent:		-_____
• Consumption of Fish:
1. Do you eat at least one fish a week, or take one gram of fish oil/day? If so, subtract 60 percent. (Best to avoid fish with high mercury or chemical contamination.)		-_____
• Processed Fats:
1. Do you routinely eat saturated fat or trans-unsaturated (hydrogenated) fats such as that in margarine or snack foods, If so, add 50 percent:	+_____
• Vitamins:
1. Do you take one multiple vitamin pill a day? If so, subtract 50 percent. (Getting a RDA level of folic acid, the B-vitamins and zinc is preventative of Alzheimer’s.)		-_____
2. If you carry the APOEe4 allele, doubling the RDA folic acid intake is useful. If your daily intake including the folic acid in the multiple vitamin in # 1, is 800 mcg/day, subtract an additional 50 percent:		-_____
3. Do you take extra vitamin C and E? If so, subtract 16 percent. (If you carry the APOEe4 allele, extra vitamin E may not be effective. Vitamin E is poorly absorbed except with meals or in food.)		-_____
4. (Note: Alpha-lipoic acid appears to be preventative of Alzheimer’s, but optimal dosage is not yet established. It is sold over-the-counter in the drugstore often in 50 mg quantities, and should be very safe at those levels.)
• Fruits and Vegetables:
1. Do you eat 5 helpings of fruits and vegetables per day, not including fried potatoes. If so, subtract 50 percent: (The extra water and fiber in fruits and vegetables has also been shown to reduce total calorie intake while satisfying appetite.)		-_____
2. Do you drink a glass of wine, preferably red, per week or day, or drink grape juice or eat red, blue or black grapes? If so, subtract 50 percent:		-_____
3. (Note: Curcumin, an ingredient turmericric used in yellow curry and blueberries appear to be preventative of cognitive impairment. Spinach and strawberries show promise, but blueberries show potential in reversing cognitive deficits in aging laboratory animals.)
• Vaccinations:
1. As you approach and pass 65 years of age, are you accepting of vaccinations for influenza or other diseases? If so, subtract 50 percent. (Note: Aluminum and mercury are often used in vaccinations, and it is difficult to know how to balance this contamination against the gain.)		-_____
• Soybeans:
1. Did you consume high levels of soybeans or tofu (2 or more servings a week) in mid-life? If so, add 50 percent:	+_____
• Lifestyle:
1. Do you have post high school education? If so, subtract 65 percent:		-_____
2. High school education? If so, subtract 30 percent:		-_____
3. Does your job require a lot of mental work? If so, subtract 50 percent:		-_____
4. Do you have a high level of active leisure: exercise, social life, intellectual life, dancing? (Note: In one study, frequent dancing which combines the entire range of social, mental and physical activity was particularly preventative.) If so, subtract 50 percent:		-_____
5. Do you live alone or divorced after the age of 60? If so, add 50 percent:	+_____
6. Are you bilingual? Positive effect on memory and elderly cognition, but we cannot presently assign a number to it for Alzheimer’s prevention.
• Night Exposure to Light: Do you sleep in a room with lights on, or work overnight shifts? This is a risk factor since night light exposure reduces melatonin production by the body, and melatonin is preventative of Alzheimer’s. But, we cannot assign a number to it presently.
• Medical History:
1. Did you have high blood pressure, very low blood pressure, or experienced sharply falling blood pressure? If so, add 50 percent:	+_____
2. If you are over 75 and have persistently low blood pressure, add 100 percent.	+_____
3. If you are over 60, and are in poor health, add 50 percent.	+_____
4. Do you have diabetes? If so, add 65 percent:	+_____
5. Have you taken aspirin or anti-inflammatories for several years before the age of 65? If so, subtract 50 percent:		-_____
6. (Note: Preliminary studies indicate that mid-life use of the statin drugs for persons with high cholesterol or heart disease may also be preventative.)
7. (Note: Use of estrogen replacement well before the age of onset may be preventative, but use after the 65 years of age may promote Alzheimer’s.)
• Other Toxins and Injuries:
1. Have you been occupationally exposed to pesticides, fertilizers or glue? If so, add 50 percent:	+_____
2. Have you been occupationally exposed to intense electromagnetic fields? If so, add 50 percent:	+_____
3. Have you had a serious head trauma? If so, add 50 percent:	+_____
Total Score (Total the Pluses and Minuses)	_____________
If your score is positive, you have a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

Asking Your Government and Supermarket For Some Changes

Alzheimer’s is not just a personal matter. The questionnaire points out a number of dietary, lifestyle and toxics issues that could be changed across the nation:

1. Baking Powders: You could ask your supermarket to remove all aluminum based baking powders from the shelf. Calcium based baking powders are readily available in the marketplace. This action would send a message to the manufacturers that they need to reformulate their products.
2. Other Food and Drug Products: A number of Alzheimer’s causing products due to their high aluminum content, are listed in the questionnaire. There are citizen campaigns to remove mercury from vaccines. While some scientists question the aluminum content of many vaccines, there is little citizen action here. The Food and Drug Administration also needs to remove aluminum from over-the-counter drugs like antacids and aspirin, and the Environmental Protection Agency prohibit addition of aluminum to drinking water.
3. Contamination of Fish: Fish is contaminated with mercury and a range of chemicals – particularly chlorinated and brominated ones that accumulate in the environment and food chain. The federal and state governments have not taken this issue seriously enough, such as controls on mercury emissions from power plants and incinerators. You could ask your congressional delegation to put some pressure on the US Environmental Protection Agency, and your local delegation to put some pressure on your governor.
4. Depletion of Fish Stocks: Fish in the diet is a significant way to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s, but the fish stock is already under pressure from consumption and pollution. There has been an indifference by governments concerning worldwide depletion of fish stock. You may want to talk with your representatives also about this. Unfortunately, flaxseed and vegetable sources of n-3 polyunsaturated fats are not readily converted in the body to the marine fatty acid DHA. Perhaps, vegetable sources can be developed, or the fatty acid can be manufactured. (One company presently manufactures DHA from algae.)
5. Processed Fats: European governments are making more progress than than the United States in removing hydrogenated and saturated fats from the food supply.
6. Folic Acid: Folic acid was originally added to cereal products in the United States to prevent neural tube birth defects, with considerable success. It has since been found to be preventative of other types of birth defects, of heart disease, some cancers, and Alzheimer’s Disease. Professional nutritionists are debating whether to increase the dosage in the cereal supply. You could ask your representatives to inquire what the Food and Drug Administration plans to do.

Footnote 1.

For reference for the effect of aluminum over the age of 65: For perspective, aluminum accumulates in the brain of all aging people over many years. One autopsy study finds 19 to 29 times higher aluminum levels in the brains of normal elderly persons aged 75 to 101 compared to persons aged 26 to 32. But, it is apparent that high dietary exposure to aluminum aged 60 and over carries a special risk for Alzheimer’s, as the following studies indicate.
1. M.A. Rogers and D.G. Simon, A preliminary study of dietary aluminum intake and risk of Alzheimer’s disease, Age and Aging 28 (1999) 205-9: In a geriatric center in Syracuse, New York the crude odds for eating high aluminum content food or cooking, baking, storing food in aluminum containers was 2.0. After adjustment for other factors related to Alzheimer’s causation, the risk of developing Alzheimer’s was 8.6 fold higher compared to matched controls for those eating aluminum enriched food. Every participant developed Alzheimer’s who ate the following foods enriched with aluminum baking powder: pancakes, waffles, biscuits, muffins, cornbread, and corn tortillas. None of the controls who avoided such food got the disease. While it was a small sample, it was statistically significant (p=0.025).
2. W.F. Forbes and D.R.C. McLachlan, Further thoughts on the aluminum-Alzheimer’s link, J Epidemiol Community Health 50 (1996) 401-3: After adjustment for factors that affect the absorption of aluminum, the odds ratio for developing Alzheimer’s was 9.95 in 85 year old men in Ontario, where aluminum in the drinking water exceeded 250 ug/l. This was statistically significant (p=0.05).
3. D.R. McLachlan, W.L. Smith and T.R. Kruck, Desferrioxamine and Alzheimer’s disease: video home behavior assessment of clinical course and measures of brain aluminum, Ther Drug Monit 15 (1993) 602-7: This human clinical trial removed 1/3rd of the aluminum from the brains of elderly persons with a chelator drug desferrioxamine, and slowed the progression of Alzheimer’s by 50 percent. The most rapidly deteriorating half of the study group were helped the most – suggesting that aluminum is a significant disease promoter.

 

Return to Alzheimer's Disease Page

 

© 2006    Department of the Planet Earth, Inc.
701 E Street, SE, Suite 200
Washington, DC  20003
Email:    planetearth@erols.com

Hosted and Designed by:
WLP Consulting  and   Forest Rivers Designs