Dementia is a canopy term for a collection of symptoms caused by disorders that affect the brain, including devastating diseases like the most common forms of Dementia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
Millions of people in the U.S. alone are living with Alzheimer’s. It can be challenging to watch someone you love deal with symptoms of Dementia, often including memory loss and trouble with language, along with personality changes, delusions, agitation, and less ability to solve problems or control their emotions.
It’s important to note that although dementia risk increases with age, it is not part of the normal aging process. Dementia can strike people as early as 30 years old.
It is certainly clear that there is a lot of pain and suffering involved with Dementia and Alzheimer’s.
Drugs have consistently come up short when it comes to curing the disease. Natural supplements, diet, and exercise can reverse Dementia and Alzheimer’s symptoms.
Lower Your Risk of Dementia
Avoid processed foods. Favoring an alkaline diet and exercising lower your risk of Dementia. There are other relatively simple, meaningful steps to lower your risk, too. Avoid high copper levels in the water. We need trace amounts of the heavy metal copper to survive because it is vital for bone, hormonal, and nerve health. However, too much of a good thing could be bad for our brain.
A study found that copper can trigger the onset of Alzheimer’s and fuel the disease. The study found that copper in drinking water at levels one-tenth of the water quality standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency caused a toxic accumulation of the pro Alzheimer’s protein amyloid-beta.
The researchers cannot yet say exactly what ‘too much’ copper is, but getting your water tested for excess copper is an excellent place to start if you have copper pipes.
Avoid products containing aluminum, an environmentally abundant metal that has long been implicated in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
Tinnitus was significantly associated with Dementia occurrences in the 30–64 years of age. Tinnitus was associated with a 63% higher risk of early-onset Dementia.
Dementia is generally regarded as a multifactorial disease and its incidence increases with age. It is not a specific disease but a group of disorders characterized by the deterioration of at least two brain functions – memory and reason.
Signs and symptoms of Dementia result when once-healthy neurons, or nerve cells, in the brain stop working, lose connections with other brain cells and die. While everyone loses some neurons as they age, people with dementia experience far more significant loss.
Dementia symptoms lead to the loss of cognitive functioning, such as thinking, remembering, and reasoning, to such an extent that it interferes with a person’s daily life and activities.
Dementia is more common as people grow older (about one-third of all people age 65 or older may have some form of Dementia), but it is not a normal part of aging. Many people live into their 90s and beyond without any signs of Dementia.
Common Early Symptoms of Dementia
- communication problems
- difficulty concentrating
- finding it hard to carry out familiar daily tasks, such as getting confused over the correct change when shopping
- struggling to follow a conversation or find the right word
- people with Dementia cannot control their emotions
- being confused about time and place
- memory loss
- repetition
- getting lost
- personality mood changes
- ringing in the ears (Tinnitus)
The three progressing stages of Dementia are early, middle, and late and are sometimes called mild, moderate, and severe because this describes how much the symptoms affect a person.
Studies suggest that, on average, someone will live around ten years following a Dementia diagnosis. However, this can vary significantly between individuals; some live for over twenty years, so it’s important to try not to focus on the figures and make the most of the time left.
Herbs That Can Provide Cognitive Relief to Those Living With Dementia, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s
- Turmeric. Alzheimer’s and Dementia occur significantly less in India than in Europe, which is due to turmeric and its primary component, curcumin, and the antioxidant benefits
- Holy Basil (Ocimum tenuiflorum)
- Ginseng
- Ginkgo biloba
- Maca
- Brahmi (Bacopa monnieri)
- Green tea (Camellia sinensis)
- Black Pepper extract (Peperine)
- Cochitzapotl from Nahuatl, is a tropical fruit tree also called casimiroa and Mexican apple. It contains a natural sedative and pain reliever
- Verdolaga, Purslane ( Portulaca oleracea)
- Magnesium and Magnesium L-Threonate Magnesium is an essential dietary mineral and is the second most common electrolyte in the body
- Mucuna Pruriens (velvet bean) Mucana Pruriens is a leguminous plant that has been used for centuries in Ayurvedic medicine for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease
- Spirulina exerts its beneficial anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects, acting on glial cell activation, in addition to the prevention or progression of neurodegenerative diseases, in particular Parkinson’s disease
- Wasabi extract demonstrated significant enhancements in two aspects of cognitive function, working (short-term) memory and episodic memory
I hope natural, integrative, personalized approaches could be the key to fighting this disease. In the meantime, it is essential to take the simple steps above to lower your risk of Dementia now — before the disease has a chance to set in.
About 35 percent of Dementia cases could be delayed or prevented if attention had been paid to modifiable risk factors, including – hypertension, obesity, hearing problems, depression, diabetes, physical inactivity, smoking, and social isolation.
If you have any comments or questions about this column, contact me by email or find me at the Cuale Island Friday and Saturday weekend Market from 10 am to 3 pm and at my storefront Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 11 am to 5 pm. You can get herbal supplements, tinctures, tonics, and many natural products such as organic coffees, apple cider vinegar with the Mother, and 38 different spices, including turmeric and Ceylon cinnamon. Superfoods such as Spike Protein Detox Golden Tea, indulge chocolate with 70% cocoa, Veggie Power, and Maz-mix digestive formula.
