What do you think caused it?
I am certain every one of you has asked this question: what caused this to happen to my loved one. I have different thoughts at different times. But if I had to pick one guess I am going to say statins. Although correlation is not causation it’s hard to ignore the uptick in statin use with the uptick of dementia over the last several decades. Some of us are unaffected by statins. But there’s something to be said for those that might have been on the edge being affected or having it accelerated. The brain uses and needs cholesterol. Statins affect cholesterol. I discussed this at length with chtgpt. It doesn’t necessarily agree or disagree ( imagine that). I’m not saying statins are necessarily a bad thing. In many cases they’re the right thing. A close second I think perhaps is stress and not relieving that stress. Interested in people’s thoughts.
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Yes who knows what causes this terrible disease to take over our LO’s brains. In our case, DW with EOAD diagnosed at 53 and now 56, has no genetic markers. What she had used for many years is Gabapentin. She has lower back damage from an accident when she was younger and was prescribed this drug for pain relief. It is supposed to be used for a short time but DW was on it for years.
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I personally believe it's some toxin we're exposed to in our environment (and I do not believe that all the research geared toward amyloid plaques will produce a cure). My mother did not take statins or anything like gabapentin, developed dementia in her late 50s with no genetic/family history. In that journey, I believe she always had something underlying but anesthesia triggered the disease to become active/more prominent. She had a minor vein-stripping procedure that seemed to trigger it, and then a series of 2 separate minor cataract removals followed by a colonoscopy, all in a 3-month period, and after the colonoscopy she was no longer able to work and cognitively fell off a cliff.
I have taken statins for years, have lived beyond when she developed her symptoms and in fact am the age she was when she was severely impaired, and I am functioning well at work and in life.2 -
Very interesting insight persevere and well thought out. I have like you and many others have ponder this question over and over. The best conclusion I have come to with my DW is a lack of quality sleep over many, many years. DW being in education for years would work tirelessly night after night for years. There were many nights she would stay up all night working on lesson plans, grading papers and preparing for the next days projects. I remember her working all night take a shower and go to work without any sleep or rest. I think anyone would agree that after so long your body will pay the price mentally and physically. I truly believe is the sacrifice she paid for her students.
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Without discounting any of the previous thoughts and suggestions, I'll just add another one: the gut biome. There is more and more evidence about how critical the gut biome is to the entire body and the different systems. Almost all of us alive today have been eating all those toxins, chemicals and empty foods since we were toddlers.
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I think lifetime drugs, unhealthy diet, unhealthy lifestyle, and environmental toxins are causing this disease. All of these elements are causing inflammation in our gut and throughout our bodies. The Pointer Study and Dr. Dean Ornish’s clinical trials have supported that diet, life style, and stress pull the trigger to activate this disease.
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I suspect that the increase in dementia among the senior population is due to advances in medicine. Sure, if statins didn't come along, dementia would probably be less prevalent but only because folks would have died at a younger age due to heart disease. Hope I'm wrong and the researchers discover a substance/ food/ chemical that causes this terrible disease and we can all benefit from a cure.
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@persevere
Interesting thought. I think it's important to recognize that the "cause" for an uptick population is likely to be different than the "cause" for a single individual.
Firstly, is there actually an uptick? Has the percentage of PWD increased? Are there more people being diagnosed simply because there are more people in the Silent Generation/Baby Boomer cohort? Age being the biggest risk factor. Life expectancy a century ago was 54 for men/58 for women. Many folks who might have gone on to develop dementia died of something else first.
Are there more people being diagnosed because doctors and the general public no longer accept significant mental deterioration as a normal part of the aging process? Some articles I read have suggested that the rate of dementia might fall in coming decades increased rates of education and better management of chronic conditions like CAD and diabetes.
If I had to hazard a guess, I'd suspect epigenetics are at play in many instances. Genes load the gun, while environment or behaviors pull the trigger.
HB8 -
Good feedback. Keep it coming. Somewhat comforting to know all the different perspectives
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I believe chronic sleep deprivation played a big part in my diagnosis of cognitive impairment not otherwise specified. Of course this is not the same as dementia, but I did have significant memory and cognitive impairment. After a diagnosis of sleep apnea and treatment with CPAP, my memory and cognition did improve. I also had other treatments in addition to CPAP. It is possible that in my case, untreated sleep apnea might have progressed eventually to dementia.
I have noticed that many PWDs exhibit poor sleep. In our culture, we are getting 1-2 hours less sleep than a century ago. I believe this is significant.
Iris
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I like what HB said about genes load the gun, while environment or behaviors pull the trigger. I think that is the case for my DH. His mother, her mother, and his maternal aunts all had Alzheimer's. DH was an active alcoholic for many years and also a smoker. He never watched what he ate and always preferred sweets. He liked to stay up late even when he wanted to get up early.
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School sports with no or poor helmets.
For years LO not on any Rx s . Then they gave the Happy Meal of a statin and other senior meds after an ER visit without any symptoms . Cognition improved after statin dropped.0 -
The greatest risk factor for dementia is age. The individual risk of developing dementia has been declining for decades. The increased prevalence of the disease is due to aging of our population. People who are aging today have a lower risk of dementia than people of the same age a couple of decades back.
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Genetics and a traumatic trigger were present in my wife's case. Her grandmother had AD, one of her aunts (grandmother's daughter) had it, and she had it after a pulmonary embolism caused memory loss due to oxygen deprivation. The AD was diagnosed 20 years later.
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My DH had a full scholarship for football to Division 1 college and was a linebacker and co-captain back in late 60s, early 70s. He physically has a big head and hard to find hats to fit him. When he was diagnosed with AD several years ago, his sister told me she wasn’t surprised because when he was in college his helmet didn’t fit him, so they took the padding out so it would!!!! And of course he had at least a couple concussion during his football years.
Agree with the genetics and traumatic trigger also, as my DH’s mom had dementia later in life and died at 92, but my DH has had AD for 11 years now and showed up in his mid 60s. So think football was his trigger.
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My DH has mixed AD and vascular dementia. I am guessing his mother had AD but didn't develop it until she was in her late 80's. Her mother the same thing.
My DH was an alcoholic, which I think contributed to his vascular dementia. He then had a bike accident and had 2 traumatic brain injuries. That accelerated the dementia immensely. He never went back to his baseline. Edit to add: HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE!
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Moms cpap broke about 12 years before she was diagnosed. She insisted it could be fixed vs replaced, but never actually tried to make that happen and just went without. I think going all that time without it may have been part of the cause. She has vascular dementia. Mom has also taken a ridiculous number of medications for many years. These medications include gabapetian and statins. I also think the lack of a healthy diet and no exercise couldn’t help.
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My DH (stage 5) and I, married 49 yrs, never took statins - although every dr we ever had recommended it. Our numbers were always over 200 (variable and usually about 230 to 270) but our cholesterol ratios were always very good - and yes, we did feel cholesterol is important to the brain.
We tried to live a healthy lifestyle (organic, no red meat, supplements, very little fast foods), the only difference being he would have a glass of red wine every evening with dinner, and he only slept 5 hrs per night. I don’t drink at all and I usually sleep 7 hrs per night. So did that make the difference? I don’t know.1 -
Everyone I know who has been diagnosed has or had sleep apnea. Interesting!
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My DW always slept like a rock. Or at least I thought she did. But then again I used to snore really bad through most of our early years. She even tape recorded me. Geez. Maybe she wasn’t sleeping as well as I thought.
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I've been saying the devil caused it because dementia ,(PCA) in my wife's case, is absolutely evil! It sucks! It sucks! It sucks!!!
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I have heard 2 health professionals refer to dementia as Type 3 diabetes as apparently the risk of developing dementia is much higher for diabetics. I’m under the impression that Type 2 diabetes has been increasing. My dh has Type 2 diabetes and likely went undiagnosed with it for several years while I tried to get him to go to the doctor. Probably 5 years after the diabetes diagnosis he started to show cognitive issues at the age of 67 and is now 74 and Stage 6 mixed AD/VD. I wonder if the dementia ball got rolling in those years that his diabetes went unchecked.
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I’m sure an unhealthy lifestyle, lack of sleep, diabetes, high cholesterol are bad for you. However I continue to believe that the increase in life expectancy caused by medical advances is the major reason for dementia. Humans were designed to live for only so long -after that our bodies and our brains wear out and break down. So just as medical issues plague us in old age, so does dementia. People just used to die from other things before that happened and now they don’t.
I know those of you looking at early onset probably have trouble with that. However even now people die of natural causes at a relatively young age, meaning their bodies just quit. So some bodies just aren’t meant to live to the same age as others.4 -
I don't know what might cause this nightmare disease and for my DW it is too late to matter. However, I pray that a cure is found to prevent this from happening to others, Selfishly, I hope that definitive cure/cause answer comes after I am gone. If it proved to have been something I could have prevented or influenced such that my DW never got it and I did not, I could not live with that answer.
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Very interesting. My mother developed dementia in her late 80's and she had untreated borderline diabetes. My DH developed dementia after being diagnosed with prediabetes at age 64.
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My spouse has what I refer to as the trifecta- 1)Multiple head injuries. 2) History of alcohol abuse. 3) Family history
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This is a question my sister and I discussed endlessly after she was diagnosed with early-onset. She would even ask about it well into stage 6. Early on she requested a genetic test, which was done, and nothing showed up.
Her lifestyle wasn't particularly unhealthy. Probably the worst thing I can say is that she was allergic to exercise. Otherwise, she ate healthy things, didn't smoke, and didn't drink a lot. Her vitals were always good too - normal cholesterol, no diabetes (no pre-diabetes either), blood pressure normal, etc. She was never on any medications of any kind until after her diagnosis.
We finally hit on pesticides and possibly benzene. She managed most of the parks in the city where she lived, and would walk the grounds of various parks every day. There were a lot of pesticides.
In her twenties she lived in an agricultural area where they sprayed the strawberry fields with benzene. They haven't done this for a couple of decades now, but they did when she lived there.
Did the pesticides and chemicals cause it? I wish I knew, but I don't think I ever will.
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Herbicides may be linked for LBD as well.
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This is one interesting idea. The fact that the definition of "normal" cholesterol has been lowered, and the guidelines for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease have also been made more stringent, means that almost every senior citizen in the land is considered a candidate for statin treatment. My own healthcare organization keeps trying to shove statins down my throat, despite the fact that my primary care doc (who works for said org) has said that I don't need them. There is a vocal group of "statin skeptics" - independent MDs and scientists who challenge the cholesterol hypothesis. I'm not a medical professional, not here to give medication advice. But these alternative viewpoints are easy to find online. If you're a nerd like me, read all about it and make your own conclusions. Here's one skeptic's take on statins and Alzheimers. https://www.ravnskov.nu/2012/10/01/october-2012/
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If only we knew the cause. If only there was treatment or a cure. Why hasn’t there been as much progress with finding treatments or cures as there has been with cancer?
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This is of course something that all of us former (my DH died 3 years ago) and present caregivers will be debating to the end of our own days. In my DH's case, I think it was a combination of clinical depression, the SSRIs he was taking for clinical depression, and alcohol use. But, honestly, we'll never know, and I think we'd all do better just to focus on dealing with what we have to deal with in the present. That's what I tried to do while I was caring for DH, anyway.
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Commonly Used Abbreviations
DH = Dear Husband
DW= Dear Wife, Darling Wife
LO = Loved One
ES = Early Stage
EO = Early Onset
FTD = Frontotemporal Dementia
VD = Vascular Dementia
MC = Memory Care
AL = Assisted Living
POA = Power of Attorney
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