Plant diets help prevent Alzheimer's

According to Dr. Michael Griegger, who discussed this extensively in his book "How Not To Die," he became the bestseller in the United Kingdom in 2016 The British doctor explains how a plant-based diet can protect you and your family against one of the UK's most deadly diseases, dementia, or Alzheimer's, one of the most physically and emotionally stressful illnesses for patients or people who take care of them.

Alzheimer's is a mental illness that affects memory, thinking and behavior, and forgetfulness is the biggest symptom. Unfortunately, there is no cure for this disease, only health care. It is a serious disease that destroys our memories and our own feelings and can not be treated effectively. But there is much you can do to reduce the risk of getting it in the first place, unlike strokes, which can kill instantly, and without any warning, Alzheimer's involves a slower and more subtle decline over months or years. It is not caused by cholesterol-laden plaques that cause heart attacks and strokes, but in that need there are plaques of a different kind, made of a substance called amyloid, which develops in brain tissue.

Most Alzheimer's patients were not diagnosed until their 70s, but we now know that their brains begin to deteriorate long before. With thousands of post-mortem tests, scientists have been able to detect the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, which appear to be "tangled" in the brain. Half the numbers of older persons aged 50 and up to 10 per cent of persons in their 20s.

But the good news is that recent tests of Alzheimer's disease have proved - as in heart disease, lung disease and stroke - to be preventable, and there is growing evidence that a healthy diet protects against this serious disease. Many studies have shown that Alzheimer's disease is due to more lifestyle than genetics, and there is emerging consensus that the same foods that block arteries can also adversely affect our brains, proof that the lowest rate of Alzheimer's disease in the world is in the North Northern India, where people traditionally carry a vegetarian diet of grains and vegetables. We also find low levels in countries like Japan as well.

But the spread of Alzheimer's disease has risen over the past few decades, which is believed to be partly due to a shift from a traditional diet based on rice and vegetables to a system that has three times the amount of milk and six times the amount of meat, the problem may be in the traditional diet, which can That block the arteries - but this time the brain.

In the United States, those who do not eat meat (including poultry and fish) have a half-risk of dementia, compared with those who eat meat more than four times a week, who are at increased risk of dementia than those who ate vegetarian diets for 30 One or more years less than three times.

The link between Alzheimer's and meat intake is strong according to the Food Guidelines of the 2014 Dietary Lifestyle Guidelines for the Prevention of Alzheimer's Disease: "Vegetables and legumes [beans, peas and lentils] and whole grains and fruits should replace meat, dairy products and staples in the diet." On plants in the guidelines for the prevention of Alzheimer's. The Mediterranean diet, for example, which encourages the intake of larger quantities of vegetables, beans, fruits and nuts, and reduced consumption of meat and dairy products, has been associated with reduced cognitive decline The lower the risk of Alzheimer's disease.

When the researchers tried to extract protective ingredients, the ingredients appeared to be high in vegetable content and less saturated fat to unsaturated. Full plant foods contain thousands of compounds with antioxidant properties, some of which can cross the blood barrier in the brain and can provide neurological effects By defending against tissue deterioration in the brain.

A major study found that women who consumed at least a small amount of berries and two strawberries each week had slower rates of cognitive decline - up to two and a half years - than those who never ate berries. This suggests that eating a handful of berries each Day - may be enough to slow the aging of the brain for more than two years, and found another study, this time of men and women, that those who ate berries of any kind have a very low rate of cardiovascular disease.

Cranberry is a fruit filled with useful botanical compounds called polyphenols. Apart from its antioxidant activity, polyphenols have been shown to protect isolated neurons by inhibiting the formation of plaques and tangles that characterize the Alzheimer's brain. In theory, it can also "pull" minerals that accumulate in regions Of the brain which may play a role in the development of Alzheimer's disease and other degenerative neurodegenerative diseases.