What is a Mediterranean Style Diet?

More American's--especially the baby boom generation--are learning the importance of eating healthy. Research studies indicate that eating Mediterranean-style seems to reduces the risk of mild cognitive impairment, dementia, and Alzheimer's.

There are numerous studies that indicate this style of eating helps reduce cardiovascular risk factors like high cholesterol, hypertension and diabetes.

All of the above are linked to Alzheimer's. I have wrote about about all these topics previously on this blog.

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The Mediterranean diet is a heart-healthy eating plan combining elements of Mediterranean-style cooking. Here are some good examples of foods on a Mediterranean-style diet?

• Whole-grain breads
  
• Pasta
• Whole fruits: baby carrots, apples and bananas
  
• Vegetables: spinach, eggplant, tomatoes, broccoli, peppers, garlic, capers
  
• Nuts: almonds, walnuts
  
• Fish: salmon, water-packed tuna, salmon, trout, mackerel
• Red wine or purple juice
• Natural peanut butter (no hydrogenated fat added)
  

Here are some additional tips:

• Use butter sparingly. "Low fat" or "cholesterol-free" on the label doesn't mean a product is necessarily good for you--think trans fats
  
• Substitute fish and poultry for red meat. Avoid sausage, bacon and other high-fat meats.
• Limit higher fat dairy products such as whole or 2 percent milk, cheese and ice cream. Switch to skim milk, fat-free yogurt and low-fat cheese.

I find myself rubbing olive oil on just about everything these days. I also give my mother two olives a day. Seems to work, so I am an advocate.

Bon Appetite.

Go here to read -- Mediterranean Diet and Exercise Cut the Risk of Alzheimer's Risk by 60 Percent

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Bob DeMarco is an Alzheimer's caregiver and editor of the Alzheimer's Reading Room. The Alzheimer's Reading Room is the number one website on the Internet for advice and insight into Alzheimer's disease. Bob taught at the University of Georgia, was an executive at Bear Stearns, the CEO of IP Group, and is a mentor. He has written more than 700 articles with more than 18,000 links on the Internet. Bob resides in Delray Beach, FL.

Original content the Alzheimer's Reading Room

Statins that stave off Alzheimer's (Zocor)

"The strength of reduction of incidence of dementia with simvastatin (Zocor) is striking".

When I read this article in July, 2007, I asked the doctor to switch my mother from Lovastatin to Zocor. At that time, Zocor was more expensive but now it is also a generic.

In the previous article on this blog I mentioned this decision. You can read about the new research with Lovastatin in the post below this one.

I first published this article in July, 2007 at the Alzheimer's Reading Room.

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found that the statin, simvastatin, reduces the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease by almost 50 percent. This is the first study to suggest that statins might reduce the incidence of Parkinson’s disease. These findings, will be published in the July online open access journal BioMed Central.

Statins that stave off Alzheimer's

By Nicole Laskowski


Statins May Stave Off Alzheimer’s

What’s up:

If you’re taking a statin to reduce cholesterol, you may also be improving your chances of avoiding certain neurodegenerative diseases. New research from the School of Medicine indicates that simvastatin, a statin sold as Zocor, reduces the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease by almost 50 percent.

The researchers, led by Benjamin Wolozin, a MED professor of pharmacology, screened the Decision Support System database of the United States Veterans Affairs Medical System, looking for the effects of three statins — simvastatin, lovastatin, and atorvastatin — on the expected incidence of Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. His study of more than 700,000 subjects taking simvastatin showed that the drug reduced the incidence of both Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease by almost 50 percent. A study of people taking atorvastatin showed that the drug reduced the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease by almost 10 percent. Lovastatin was not shown to reduce the incidence of either disease.

Wolozin is unsure why simvastatin reduces the incidence of these diseases, but he suspects that because the statin blocks a cholesterol-producing enzyme called HMG-CoA reductase, it may also affect the production of other chemicals. He notes that simvastatin reduces inflammation, and that it increases the production of some growth factors in the brain, which may make neurons more capable of resisting chronic degenerative disease.

What it means to you:

“If you are someone who is at risk for Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease, you should use simvastatin because it could slow the process,” said Wolozin. “Most people currently use atorvastatin, because it is effective at reducing vascular injury related to cardiovascular disease. If your major health risk is cardiovascular disease, you might want to stay with atorvastatin, but if your major health risk is neurodegenerative disease, you might consider switching to simvastatin.”

Word to the wise:

At the moment, researchers recognize a relationship between simvastatin and the onset of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. They do not know how this relationship works. Be advised that statins may cause side effects such as headaches, nausea, rash, weakness, and muscle pain.

What’s next: Wolozin hopes to learn to determine how strong the relationship is between statins and degenerative diseases, like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. He plans on studying how the drug slows the progression of symptoms by gathering data on when Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease patients, both on and off the drug, meet certain well-known markers of the diseases.

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Lovastatin Shown To Slow Progression Of Alzheimer's Disease

This is a classic example of the Alzheimer's CareGiver conundrum. I switched my mother from Lovastatin to Zocor after reading a similar article pointing out the benefits of statins.

I'll put the article up on Zocor soon. Zocor did improve her cholesterol numbers.

clipped from www.medicalnewstoday.com High cholesterol levels are considered to be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease including stroke. Therefore, many cholesterol lowering drugs have been developed by pharmaceutical companies in recent years. One class of these drugs, statins, has been found to reduce the incidence of stroke and progression of Alzheimer's disease when prophylactically administered. In a recent paper published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, Amalia Dolga and co-workers from the University of Groningen show that the statin lovastatin, in addition to lowering cholesterol, can also prevent nerve cells from dying in conditions that occur in Alzheimer's disease Amalia Dolga found that statins stimulate nerve cells to produce a specific receptor molecule for a protein which plays a central role in the body's immune response: Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.