Alzheimer’s: 4 lifestyle changes can help improve or prevent decline

Alzheimer’s disease is a disease that causes brain changes and affects more than six million people in the United States alone.

People with Alzheimer’s disease often experience a progressive decline in cognitive function and memory. They may suffer from memory loss, personality changes, and impaired judgment. Alzheimer’s disease is also the most common type of dementia, making it a particularly important area of ​​research.

Shannel Kassis Elhelou, Psy.D., a geropsychology and neuropsychology fellow at the Brain Wellness and Lifestyle Programs at the Pacific Neuroscience Institute in Santa Monica, Calif., who was not involved in the study, noted the following about Alzheimer’s disease for Medical news today:

“Alzheimer’s disease has a significant impact on quality of life and functioning through a progressive decline in memory, cognitive functioning (attention, processing speed, problem solving, word finding), speech tasks, daily life (managing finances, driving, managing medications, household chores), as well as changes in mood (increased irritability, anxiety, depression or apathy).

“Over time, Alzheimer’s disease leads to a decline in physical health, reducing mobility and increasing the risk of falls. Overall, these effects lead to social isolation and significant burden on caregivers, further impacting the quality of life of the individual and caregivers,” said Elhelou.

There is drugs that help people with Alzheimer’s disease, but experts are also interested in how lifestyle interventions can also help. These lifestyle interventions were the focus of the current study.

For the current study, the researchers wanted to examine whether a combination of non-drug interventions could help people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

This study was a randomized, controlled clinical trial including fifty-one participants. All participants suffered from mild cognitive impairment or early-onset dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease. The average age of participants was 73.5 years. The researchers excluded participants with moderate or severe dementia and those who could not participate in regular exercise.

The researchers divided the participants into two groups. The control group received standard care, and the intervention group received standard care and participated in four key lifestyle interventions:

1. Implementation of a whole-food, minimally processed, plant-based diet with specific supplements and low levels of harmful fats and refined carbohydrates,
2. Moderate exercise for at least thirty minutes a day and light strength training three times a week or more,
3. Stress management techniques like meditation, yoga and breathing exercises,
4. Regular use of support groups three times a week.

In total, the intervention period lasted 20 weeks and two participants in the intervention group withdrew. Researchers provided intervention participants with food, help with exercise, supervision of stress management techniques, and access to support group meetings.

Researchers used several measures to assess the success of interventions, including four assessment tools: AD Rating Scale – Cognitive Subscale, Clinical Global Impression of Change, Sum of AD Rating Boxes clinical dementia and global assessment of clinical dementia. They also looked at some microbiome biomarkers and taxa.

The control group showed declines in all four assessments of cognition and function. In contrast, the intervention group showed improvement in three of the assessments. At the final assessment, the intervention group showed less progression than the control group.

Additionally, the intervention group showed improved microbiome configuration and improvement in clinically relevant biomarkers compared to controls.

Study author Dean Ornish, founder and president of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute and clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, noted the following highlights of the search for Medical news today:

“What makes our research unique is that it is the first time a randomized controlled clinical trial has demonstrated that an intensive lifestyle intervention, without medications, significantly improves cognition and function after 20 weeks in many patients with mild cognitive impairment or early-onset dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease. .”

“There was a statistically significant dose-response correlation between the degree of lifestyle change in both groups and the degree of change in most cognitive and functional test measures. In short, the more these patients modified their lifestyle in accordance with the prescribed modalities, the greater the beneficial impact on their cognition and function.
— Dean Ornish, study author

Although the results do not mean that everyone in the intervention group experienced improvement in cognitive function, they mark superior results to standard care interventions. Ornish noted that “not all patients in the intervention group improved; in the CGIC test, 71% improved or remained unchanged. In contrast, none of the patients in the control group improved, eight remained unchanged, and 17 (68%) worsened.

If future research confirms these findings, interventions could be further emphasized as a way to help people with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. This could also have implications for the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease.

This research has several limitations.

First, it involved a fairly small sample, which could allow the results to be replicated with larger groups, and the results cannot be generalized. The researchers were also unable to include some people in the intervention, such as those who did not have a caregiver who could help them adhere to the study.

Because research has focused on Alzheimer’s disease, it’s also unclear how interventions might help people with other types of dementia. Researchers note the increased likelihood of Type II error in some measures related to ethnic and racial diversity.

The study is also limited by its design, such as not being double-blind. The researchers also did not take measurements of brain structure, which might have given a better idea of ​​the results.

The intervention period lasted only 20 weeks, so future research could have more extensive intervention and follow-up durations and include greater diversity among study participants. The interventions were also complex, making it not entirely clear whether any one is superior in how it helps people with Alzheimer’s disease.

Additionally, some data relied on participant self-report, which is not the most accurate method of data collection.

The researchers acknowledge that some participants might have adhered better to the intervention, which could explain why these participants saw an improvement in their cognition.

The researchers also acknowledge that “findings on the degree of lifestyle change required to halt deterioration or improve cognition and function should be interpreted with caution.” Since the data from the two groups were combined, this was no longer a randomized trial for this specific analysis, so there could be unknown confounding influences.

However, the findings still offer hope to people and their loved ones affected by Alzheimer’s disease and point to further research in the future.

Elhelou noted the following:

“I hope to see more providers discussing this information with their patients and am excited about future research in this area.” These results highlight the potential of non-pharmacological interventions in the treatment of MCI (mild cognitive impairment) and early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. Ongoing research may further strengthen its ability to influence health care guidelines by promoting lifestyle modifications as a crucial strategy to slow the progression of MCI and early-stage Alzheimer’s disease.