welcome to the organic green doctor blog

i am a family physician who was diagnosed with
early mild cognitive impairment(mci) amnestic type on december 21, 2010
this is a precursor to alzheimers disease
because of this diagnosis i have opted to stop practicing medicine
this blog will be about my journey with this disease
please feel free to follow me along this path
i will continue blogging on organic gardening, green living,
solar power, rainwater collection, and healthy living
i will blog on these plus other things noted to be interesting

Saturday, July 24, 2021

alzheimers news-controlling your cholesterol does lower your risk

ALZHEIMERS NEWS-CONTROLLING YOUR CHOLESTEROL DOES LOWER YOUR RISK

over the last 10 years when i discussed what healthy things you could do that could make a difference in slowing down the development of alzheimers one of the things i wrote or have said to do was to control your cholesterol

the lipid profile you do has the total cholesterol the triglycerides the hdl cholesterol and the ldl cholesterol

it seems the ldl cholesterol is the one we need to be paying attention to 
it seems that we want to keep our ldl levels below 100
this matches where the cardiologists want you ldl level to be to decrease your risk of developing heart disease
it seems that level works for the brain like it does for the heart

there a saying in the alzheimers world
whats good for the heart is good for the brain

i might add controlling your blood pressure is another thing to do 

i looked back at my old ldl cholesterol levels dating back to my 40s
my initial ldl level done was way too high
it was over 240
over time with diet and with the off and on use of medication i kept it down lower than 130
but
knowing what i know now it would have been better if i had got on a strong dose of a statin to keep it below 100

when i was diagnosed over 10 years ago i have been on a strong statin and have kept it below 100

less than 100 is where this study i read about recommended it be at
the earlier the better 

they found keeping the ldl level down below 100 in middle age may help slow down the development of memory loss or dementia a decade later

i probably lost some ground by not keeping  mine in the less than 100 all those years
but at least i dropped it over a 100 points just with what i was doing in my 40s and 50s
had i not i might have progressed sooner with my disease

here is the scientific article from the lancet

here is a review of the article that is easier to understand

so basically what they are saying is 
to control your ldl cholesterol in your middle age to prevent the showing of memory symptoms ten years later

whats good for the heart is good for the brain

there are these white matter hyperintensities that show up on your mri
they can be caused by high blood pressure and probably also high cholesterol as well as diabetes smoking aging etc
the more you have the more likely they can cause memory loss or dementia or stroke

i have had over 10 mris in the last 10 years
i looked at my first one from 2010 and my last one from 2 months ago 
my white matter hyperintensities have not changed in the last 10 years
thats a good thing
for my brain

it also may be another reason why i am doing better now than i was 10 years ago
controlling my cholesterol and blood pressure may have helped

this is me standing outside the building at ucla where i get my monthly infusions of biogen aduhelm (aducanumab) in the continuation of the study i am in 

i received my second infusion in the restart study
i received 7 infusions in the original study that was stopped before the pandemic
i received 18 infusions of placebo in that study 
so
i have received 9 total infusions of aduhelm (aducanumab)
so
if you could see my original amyvid amyloid pet scan and compare it to the one i did about a month ago
you would see that some of the amyloid is gone from my brain now
then
in a year when i get my next amyvid amyloid pet scan then most of the amyloid would be gone from the scan

i just finished two infusions of 1 mg/kg dose
i now will get two infusions of 3 mg/kg dose
then
i will get two infusions of 6 mg/kg dose
then
i will start the recommended treatment dose of 10 mg/kgm dose
then
after getting those two infusions i will have an mri done to see if i am having any microbleeds in the brain called aria or amyloid related imaging abnormalities
most of these are asymptomatic
if symptomatic you can get headaches dizziness changes in metal state confusion nausea tremor and gait disturbances

luckily most are asymptomatic
very few patients have had to stop the study because of these symptoms

when interviewed i was asked was i worried about these arias
my answer
no
i dont give it second thought
as
i am on a mission here
i dont want anything to get in my way

the organicgreen doctor

No comments:

Post a Comment