Why Do Healthy People Get Alzheimer’s Disease?

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I was recently asked a great question:  How can the Bredesen protocol help someone diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment or Alzheimer’s disease who already has a healthy diet and lifestyle, and whose doctor has ordered complete health panels?

That’s a great question because “healthy” people are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s every day, and their doctors are dismayed because the standard test panels don’t reveal anything. The short answer that I provided is that we have to investigate further to find the underlying causes. We also have to make sure a healthy lifestyle is actually a brain-healthy diet and lifestyle

Most people believe health is the absence of symptoms. We’ve all been trained to wait until we have symptoms to see a doctor so he can prescribe a medication or perform a surgery that will make us feel better. We assume that if we don’t have symptoms, we’re healthy.

If you have an acute condition — one with a severe and sudden onset that could be anything from a broken bone to a heart attack — you clearly have a health problem that needs immediate medical attention to directly address the issue and, hopefully, save your life.

However, if you have a chronic condition — such as cancer, Type 2 diabetes, autoimmune conditions, Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer’s — by the time you seek medical attention because of the symptoms, it’s already been developing for a long time. In the case of Alzheimer’s, it may have been developing for decades without symptoms.

That’s why it’s important to remember that when it comes to chronic conditions, the absence of symptoms doesn’t mean “healthy” since they are the last thing to appear in the chronic disease process. When they do appear, the standard treatment model is to treat the symptom with a medication rather than look upstream to find the cause of it. That may make you feel better, but what happens if you stop taking the medication? If you’re healthy, should you need medication? 

When it comes to the issue of a “healthy diet,” a truly healthy one goes a long way to prevent disease. Unfortunately, the definition of what a “healthy diet” is has become confusing and misleading. And even a truly healthy diet doesn’t preclude an eventual Alzheimer’s diagnosis, which will require a dietary adjustment from what may be considered healthy to one specific to brain health.

Many times, that means eating in a way that provides a different fuel source for the brain because, in most cases, the Alzheimer’s brain is unable to efficiently use glucose for energy. For more info on that, see my article: How Alzheimer’s, Brain Energy and Food Are Connected

How, then, can a “healthy” person who has a “healthy diet and lifestyle” get Alzheimer’s disease?

First, health is not the absence of symptoms. Alzheimer’s disease starts before you have symptoms. It’s a complicated metabolic and/or toxic disease with many underlying contributors, most of which do not have overt symptoms and may not seem to be related to the brain. Examples include:

  • high homocysteine
  • insulin resistance (without type 2 diabetes)
  • oxidized LDL
  • plasmalogen deficiency
  • metabolic syndrome
  • high blood pressure
  • type 2 diabetes
  • sleep apnea 

So how could the ReCODE protocol, which has lifestyle changes as a major component, help an already “healthy” person? Primarily, it’s due to two important factors:

  • Detailed lab testing aimed at uncovering as many of the hidden contributors as possible
  • A personalized approach to optimizing what’s found

Here’s the bottom line: I’ve tested a lot of “healthy” people and have found the beginnings of the metabolic mayhem that leads to chronic disease in practically all of them. That’s not surprising considering only 12% of American adults are metabolically healthy.

That doesn’t mean Alzheimer’s is inevitable for those I tested who had no cognitive symptoms, but it does mean they aren’t as healthy as they think they are. And left unchecked, these underlying issues will inevitably, like dominos, lead to more metabolic dysfunction and then symptoms of some sort. By the time an Alzheimer’s diagnosis is made, if it is, the underlying issues have been cascading for a long time.

Unfortunately, when symptoms of chronic diseases do appear they’re usually treated with a long-term medication that doesn’t stop the progression, because the actual root of the problem is never found. That’s why your best hope is to try to figure out what’s really causing the problem so you can address it.

Will the Bredesen ReCODE protocol be able to stop or reverse the cognitive symptoms that are a result of years of unknown metabolic, toxic or infectious issues? It’s dependent upon several factors and there are individual differences, but it has helped a lot of people over the years. In fact, 84% of those in the 2020 Proof of Concept Clinical Trial significantly improved their cognition across several different measures.

Here’s another important thing to keep in mind: A “healthy” person who gets Alzheimer’s disease isn’t actually a healthy person. My mom thought she was healthy because she rarely got sick. She thought her diet and lifestyle were healthy. After she came to live with me, I had the opportunity to order the tests and she definitely was not healthy. Every woman in my maternal line who has had Alzheimer’s disease was considered “healthy.” I could say the same thing about myself since I haven’t even had a cold in over 20 years, but lab testing has revealed early issues and given me the opportunity to correct them.

That’s why I regularly test for the underlying contributors to Alzheimer’s in myself and my clients while living a brain-body healthy lifestyle.

After all, Alzheimer’s is a sneaky disease — you can’t see it coming. But you can head off its potential arrival, or address current symptoms, by proactively testing for and optimizing its underlying causes. And that’s good news for Alzheimer’s prevention and reversal.

Angela Chapman is a Bredesen ReCODE Practitioner, Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner and Functional Health Educator. If you’re searching for practical ways to protect your brain health and avoid Alzheimer’s disease, her Sunday email is a great resource for you.