I continued to run stairs during the summer, on hot and humid days that were unsuitable for getting Cindy out. Since my outdoor activities with the pedicab and datemobile provide all my distance/aerobic needs, I use stair reps more for anaerobic training, ten reps of speed followed by twenty reps of cooldown. By the time fall approached my performance with stair reps improved.
They aren’t fans of my stair reps.
Three months ago I needed to walk the next stair rep after my first burst of ten; now the first time I walk a stair rep is after the fifth burst of ten. More revealing is the increased balance I have when making my 180 degree turn. These improvements are not due to increased conditioning, during winter months I actually do longer and more strenuous reps, but due to my improved blood pressure over the past few months (now mid-120s/80s, thanks for asking).
Over the summer Google Alerts fed me articles on researchers “discovering” that lowered blood pressure slows cognitive decline. Like my stair reps, news of such “discoveries” comes in bursts and are recycled over time. Yet this time journalists for mainstream media like Time were touting this new “discovery.”
Perhaps researchers led the journalists to think they were uncovering a new discovery; after all, you don’t get much funding for researching old discoveries. Yet vascular dementia is the second most prevalent avenue of cognitive decline after Alzheimer’s. Poor blood flow to the brain causes vascular dementia; high blood pressure causes poor blood flow to the brain. You do not need to be Sherlock Holmes, nor an NIH funded study, to figure out that improving blood pressure can improve brain health.
I have sifted through Google Alerts on “Alzheimer’s” and “brain health” for four years now. In a typical day I’ll glance over twenty titles. I ignore the endless announcements about a “walk to end Alzheimer’s” (ironic, considering the main reason why Cindy and I walked 5,000 miles across the country). I ignore the articles with a business angle for investors. I even ignore the “promising results” for a proposed treatment or medicine removing or mitigating amyloid plaques. Such “promising results” have proven false to date, over and over again.
As for the recent ploy that “the first Alzheimer’s survivor is out there,” in truth the first Alzheimer’s survivor already exists. Indeed, the first one actually is long dead and gone. Autopsies for research on nuns and superagers already proved a brain could be riddled with amyloid plaques yet still function well until the end. I am not alone in being fed up with the marketing from organizations like the Alzheimer’s Association, as the following podcast from the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health testifies. I strongly urge you to give it a listen when you are done reading this.
The “brain health” alerts prove to be more informative than ones for “Alzheimer’s.” They reveal two things. Lifestyle choices have greater impact to date on slowing cognitive decline than any of the current medicines or “promising” results for removing or mitigating amyloid plaques. These lifestyle choices tend to remove or mitigate oxidative stress instead. On January 3, 2016, barely a year after my studies began, I posted on my blog “The Alzheimer’s Murder Mystery,” pointing to oxidative stress as the real villain causing dementia. Thirty-three months worth of “promising results” being recycled for the removal or mitigation of amyloid plaques later, the research focus is shifting towards oxidative stress, as this abstract shows.
As a brain health junky I’ve learned much, but the only bits of what I’ve learned that still draw my attention are lifestyle choices, not promises to end Alzheimer’s or dementia through medicine or treatments. I understand that a “magic pill” for amyloid plaques, if ever discovered, will decrease the chance of getting dementia, but only via one pathway towards oxidative stress. Completely eliminating the chance for dementia requires lifestyle choices as well, or instead. No one thinks that cirrhosis of the liver will or should be cured by a magic pill; toxicity to the brain via free radicals may pose the same health trajectory as toxicity to the liver via alcohol. Both might be avoided with proper lifestyle choices; both have a point of no return once the toxicity reaches a certain level.
Cindy and I wanted to use our experiences to inform and benefit others, applying my academic training as a researcher was part of this, but dealing with recycled news has reached a saturation point in terms of brain health reporting (most of this reporting is done on Facebook, not this blog). Hopefully, our experiences will continue benefiting others, but this will have to be in a different way. In a few months there will be a shift in my online approach, centered around what I call the SPA Treatment (being Social, Positive and Active). Rather than a blog or a “Social Network” I am working on the details for a “Social, Positive and Active Network” that advocates and nurtures living well for brain health. Stay tuned for details.
Though the overall numbers of those with Alzheimer’s has increased, due to the proliferation of baby boomers, the rate has declined in recent years, attributed to the increased awareness and practice for living well, such as the SPA Treatment. Even so, I recall an unfortunate comment I read to an article about healthy lifestyles improving brain health. Unfortunately, the commenter had a friend that allegedly lived healthy yet still had dementia. The commenter concluded: “I will wait for a pill.”
Rather than medicine being a stopgap while healthy living provides the ultimate protection, too many people in our society have the opposite viewpoint. Sure, they understand that living well is good advice, but many will “wait for a pill” as the ultimate solution. As I work on lowering my blood pressure I have some understanding and even sympathy for this inverted point of view.
Like the commenter’s friend I already live healthy in the eyes of most. There are lifestyle factors that could be more in my favor but are beyond my control; you can imagine what those factors are. However, I knew I could do better with a couple factors, namely a diet tailored specifically for blood pressure and deep breathing exercises. I addressed those two factors and my BP improved.
Unfortunately, I also discovered that just a momentary relapse in my routine had an immediate and significant impact on blood pressure. During the week around my birthday my blood pressure jumped back up by ten points. I was a bad boy. One really has to take this healthy living approach seriously; I can understand the reliance on medicine as an alternative. Why drink beet juice every morning when it is so much easier to rely on modern medicine? By the way, I now know a practical use for those meager 4 oz juice glasses. I put a very large ice cube into the glass as well, since beet juice just tastes so much better chilled. 😉
Why, indeed?! The answer comes as I continue my stair reps. Not only do I make those 180 degree turns better, but I also am able to better “solve the world’s problems” during my cooldown reps (alas, still no one listens). I am thinking and prioritizing better both on and off the stairs.
Our bodies are holistically integrated. A healthy lifestyle does not address only one health problem but provides a variety of fringe health benefits. Nor are the fringe benefits limited to physical and brain health. I am more content now than at the beginning of summer even though, let’s face it, Cindy continues to decline. I review some of the things I said, felt and did at the beginning of the summer with some remorse, realizing now that was the high blood pressure acting out (well, heat and humidity might have contributed as well). Now I feel in a healthier state of body, mind and soul.
I’ll never get used to beet juice, though; I rather do even more stair reps.
