(KNSI) – Alzheimer’s and dementia research is making great strides. The body of knowledge surrounding risk factors and lifestyle adjustments that can halt, or even turn back the diseases’ progress continues to grow.
Dr. Pat Zook of the Dementia Community Action Network in St. Cloud says unfortunately some risk factors can’t be mitigated. “So, for instance, living in a metropolitan area like Minneapolis, or Detroit, or Cleveland, Chicago, New York City…you’re inhaling toxins at a significant level. Certain dreadful toxins can have an element of irreversibility.”
Zook says the correlation shows up graphically. “If you look at incidence of dementia, it means how many people in a population per million have dementia, it’s quite high in the same areas where air pollution is quite high. The two maps sort of cover each other,” he says.
The average person who is diagnosed with dementia has around a dozen contributing risk factors. Zook talks about diet and the treatment of depression or stress as being textbook examples of conditions where the disease can lessen in severity when the underlying factor is treated.
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