UK Launch World’s Largest Global Dementia Prevention Research – Open for Online Enrolment

Every three seconds someone in the world develops dementia and the rate is increasing. Billions of dollars have been spent on the search for a drug that can block the damaging build-up of plaque in the brain that’s thought to be central to the disease. But the results are not impressive and the side effects include bleeding into the brain.

Now that gloomy picture is being transformed in a remarkable and surprising way. Rather than pinning our hopes on another new, powerful and expensive drug, mounting evidence suggests that such seemingly old-fashioned approaches as diet, lifestyle and environmental changes, could dramatically reduce the number of Alzheimer’s cases.

An international Alzheimer’s Prevention Expert Team have calculated that over 80 per cent of them could be prevented in this way. A study in Holland last year found that having good levels of vitamin D, omega-3, found in oily fish, and B vitamins cut dementia risk to less than a quarter.

Other changes can also have a beneficia effect, such as regular exercise, keeping mentally active and cutting down on sugar. This last change is especially effective since diabetics have double the risk of cognitive decline.

The next big challenge is to discover which combination of changes have the most impact? This is currently being investigated by the UK based Alzheimer’s prevention charity foodforthebrain.org

Today it is launching a global research project to discover the hardest hitting combinations of prevention steps having tested over 200,000 in the UK. They are now inviting people around the world to complete a free, online diet and lifestyle questionnaire and a cognitive function test.

The project, headed by Oxford University-trained neuroscientist Dr Tommy Wood, Associate Professor at the University of Washington, aims to test over 20 million people – a million each from the UK, Germany and Poland, a similar number from the US, Canada, Brazil, Japan, and 10 million in China, which has the world’s highest prevalence of dementia.

In China the project is supported by the China National Health Association and the former Minister of Health, Gao Qiang. “We must popularise prevention,” he says. “With 300 million people over 60, this has to be our focus. Foodforthebrain’s initiative is the way forward. It is something everyone can do, right now for themselves.”

China’s leading prevention expert Professor Jin-Tai Yu, from Fudan University in Shanghai adds: “It may be possible to prevent up to 80% of dementia cases if all known risk factors are targeted.’ The ones he considers especially effective are B vitamins which reduce levels of a toxic amino acid found in the brain called homocysteine. High levels can damage both brain cells and blood vessels.

His research, together with results from Oxford University’s leading prevention expert Professor David Smith, who has been analysing data from the UK Bio Bank, has already shown that up to 73% of dementia cases can be prevented[2] even without factoring in the B vitamin and omega-3 benefits.

“Our research at Oxford found almost nine times less shrinkage in the Alzheimer’s associated areas of the brain in those taking B vitamin supplements who had raised homocysteine[3], which is common among over 60+ year olds, and in early signs of dementia.” says Professor Smith.

President of the China National Health Association, Wu YingPing, believes it is the combination of both diet, nutritional supplementation and lifestyle that can impact dementia prevention in the ‘silver-haired’ community. “It is education, rather than medication, that we need and foodforthebrain’s global campaign is something we fully support to help achieve this.”

In the UK, Japan and Brazil a task force of over 10,000 doctors are being trained to enrol their patients in the ‘citizen science’ charitable project which is being funded by individuals, not vested interest companies.

In the UK a group of GPs, part of the Public Health Collaboration, have joined the task force to help drive the project to hundreds of thousands of patients across the UK. Former GP and Chair of the Public Health Collaboration, Dr David Jehring, says “personalised digital health education such as this is the way forward. No drug treatment has yet produced a clinically meaningful effect, with awful adverse effects. We have to face the reality that dementia can only be prevented by tackling that ‘perfect storm’ of 21st century diet and lifestyle that create cognitive decline in the first place. It is not likely to be solvable by medication.”

In the US Dr Mark Hyman, who is part of foodforthebrain’s group of prevention experts, is supporting Robert F Kennedy Jr, the newly appointed Secretary of Health, in the campaign to ‘Make America Healthy Again’ with prevention at its core. “Our healthcare system is failing because it treats symptoms rather than addressing the root causes of disease. I fully support Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s commitment to investigating the underlying drivers of chronic illness and ensuring that prevention, not just treatment, is at the core of our national health strategy. The science is clear – food is the most powerful medicine we have to prevent, reverse, and even treat conditions like dementia, autoimmune diseases, and metabolic disorders. If we truly want to make America healthy again, we must shift our focus from managing disease to creating health.” says Dr Hyman.

The free online test, which is available in Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Portugese, French, German and Polish, also invites participants to submit a pinprick of blood via a home test kit, to measure vitamin D, omega-3, B vitamin, antioxidant and blood sugar status.

Professor Peter Garrard, Director of the Dementia Research Group at St George’s, University of London, says “It is vital that functional biomarkers such as homocysteine and omega-3 are measured in this research because these can be changed with nutritional interventions and are associated with reducing risk.”

“The purpose of this global campaign is to collect diet, lifestyle, biomarker, and cognitive function data on an unprecedented scale. With these data, we hope to discover which lifestyle changes have the maximum likelihood of preventing cognitive decline early enough to minimise an individual’s dementia risk in the future.” Says Dr Tommy Wood, who is heading the research.

Anyone can take part and become a ‘citizen scientist’ by completing the free online Cognitive Function Test at foodforthebrain.org which then advises individuals what changes to make to help reduce their future risk. All data collected is anonymised for research purposes. The data will then be available to prevention researchers around the world.

“Our aim is to discover the simplest changes that have the most impact on cognitive function to prevent this devasting disease, then share that information with the public and public health experts advising governments around the world.” says the charity’s founder Patrick Holford and author of a new book Alzheimer’s:Prevention is the Cure. “Less than one in a hundred cases of Alzheimer’s is caused by genes. That means that, potentially, 99% of cases of Alzheimer’s are preventable”