The following article from the Daily Beast describes new research that indicates proper diet and exercise significantly eliminates the chances for developing the dreaded brain disease. Check out this link. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/22/why-we-can-and-must-focus-on-preventing-alzheimer-s.html. Posted by Howard Brockman, LCSW August 22, 2013
Nearly everyone knows that exercise reduces your stress. By working out the physical tensions at the gym, the mental tensions seem to dissipate more easily because you simply feel better. It’s also been shown that exercise increases the concentrations of norepinephrine, a chemical that tends to moderate the nervous system’s response to stress.
Did you know that regular vigorous exercise in many cases is just as effective (or even more effective) than antidepressant medications for depression? It’s true. It’s your endorphins that have been identified for creating those wonderful feelings of well-being and even euphoria. These drugs are just waiting to be accessed in your own brain pharmacy, and for a little bit of physical effort, they are yours for the taking. Though I am not a long distance runner, the 40-minutes of cardio effort on the stationery bike and the elliptical cross trainer that I submit myself to 3-4 times a week definitely provide me with a happy buzz that endures. I love the feeling I leave with when I’m done exercising.
My mother died on December 1st at the age of eighty five after struggling with Alzheimer’s disease that was first diagnosed in 2005. Prior to becoming affected by the disease, she was a remarkably energetic and enthusiastic woman, frequently traveling… Read More »Postscript on my mother’s life and death
Food is such an interesting topic. It’s an integral part of our lives and we keep hearing about how it affects our health and well-being. It seems to me that there are always diets touting particular health benefits that all have convincing arguments for embracing that diet. I remember the time I decided to become vegetarian. I was in college and went off campus to have a burger with a friend. The burgers were big—at least a half of a pound and with all the other stuff under the bun, it was a huge sandwich. In fact, when I was finished, I got a terrible stomachache that lasted well into the night. This was an unusual experience for me and soon afterwards, I swore off of meat completely. I just couldn’t bear having that experience again. This was during the time when Frances Moore Lappe had just published Diet for a Small Planet and I was learning the value of fully blended amino acids from eating beans and rice (instead of meat).
Curiously, I have noticed that over the years I have continued to seek out information about the relationship between diet and health. Perhaps not all that unusual, I ended up relinquishing my vegetarian diet. After cooking vegetarian recipes for years, I needed new guidance for cooking non-vegetarian. I tried a number of diet approaches among them being the Zone Diet by Barry Sears. Since cholesterol runs high in my family, this seemed like a good choice and while it was OK, it never did lower my cholesterol. I then pursued the Mediterranean diet with the benefits of seafood, good olive oil and red wine containing resveratrol. I liked that diet but it too was not achieving a reduction in cholesterol for me. For many years I was always leery of eating too many eggs because of the fear they would clog up my arteries (that was and still is believed by many today to be true, even by many mainstream doctors).
A new article in Salem’s Statesman Journal has described family and friends of people with Alzheimer’s in Oregon providing about $2.2 billion worth of unpaid care. Projections are that the scourge will continue to grow by 69% (up to 110,000)… Read More »Alzheimer’s is growing in Oregon
As I have mentioned before, with one out of every eight baby boomers projected to succumb to Alzheimer’s disease, this disease without a cure on the horizon is scary indeed. But Scientific American has reported on the possibility of a… Read More »Alzheimer’s Update