Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Prevention
By Mayo Clinic staffRight now, there's no proven way to prevent the onset of Alzheimer's disease. Human trials of a promising vaccine against Alzheimer's had to be stopped several years ago because some of the people who received the vaccine developed a serious inflammation of the brain.
However, you may be able to reduce your risk of Alzheimer's disease by reducing your risk of heart disease. Many of the same factors that increase your risk of heart disease can also increase your risk of dementia. The main players appear to be blood pressure, cholesterol and blood glucose levels.
Keeping active — physically, mentally and socially — also seems to reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease.
- Alzheimer's disease fact sheet. National Institute on Aging. http://www.nia.nih.gov/Alzheimers/Publications/adfact.htm. Accessed Oct. 31, 2008.
- Shadlen MF, et al. Evaluation of cognitive impairment and dementia. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Nov. 3, 2008.
- Caselli RJ, et al. The degenerative dementias: Alzheimer's disease. In: Goetz CG, et al. Textbook of Clinical Neurology. 3rd ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2007. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/109112945-3/0/1488/287.html. Accessed Nov. 3, 2008.
- Alzheimer's information: Causes. National Institute on Aging. http://www.nia.nih.gov/Alzheimers/AlzheimersInformation/Causes/. Accessed Nov. 6, 2008.
- Shadlen MF, et al. Dementia syndromes. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Nov. 6, 2008.
- Basics of Alzheimer's disease: What it is and what you can do. Alzheimer's Association. http://www.alz.org/national/documents/brochure_basicsofalz_low.pdf. Accessed Nov. 6, 2008.
- Alzheimer's disease genetics fact sheet. National Institute on Aging. http://www.nia.nih.gov/Alzheimers/Publications/geneticsfs.htm. Accessed Nov. 6, 2008.
- Shadlen MF, et al. Risk factors for dementia. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Nov. 6, 2008.
- Kelley BJ, et al. Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment. Neurological Clinics. 2007;25:577.
- Late-stage care. Alzheimer's Association. http://www.alz.org/national/documents/brochure_latestage.pdf. Accessed Nov. 7, 2008.
- Dementia care practice recommendations for assisted living residences and nursing homes. Alzheimer's Association. http://www.alz.org/national/documents/brochure_DCPRphases1n2.pdf. Accessed Nov. 7, 2008.
- Neurological diagnostic tests and procedures. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/misc/diagnostic_tests.htm. Accessed Nov. 7, 2008.
- Press D, et al. Cholinesterase inhibitors in the treatment of dementia. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Nov. 7, 2008.
- Press D, et al. Treatment of dementia. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Nov. 7, 2008.
- Press D, et al. Prevention of dementia. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Nov. 7, 2008.
- Natural medicines in the clinical management of Alzheimer's disease. Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database. http://www.naturaldatabase.com. Accessed Nov. 10, 2008.
- Alexander M, et al. Patient information: Alzheimer's disease. http://www.uptodate.com/patients/content/topic.do?topicKey=~eWpcYl7lC9LRwe. Accessed Nov. 10, 2008.
- Press D, et al. Future directions in dementia treatments. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Nov. 7, 2008.
- Smith GE (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. Nov. 19, 2008.
- DeKosky ST, et al. Ginkgo biloba for prevention of dementia: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of the American Medical Association. 2008;19:2253.
