A healthy brain throughout life is the goal.

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What We Do

The scientific literature on Alzheimer’s disease (Alz) is tens of thousands of experiments and reviews and comments on the contents of those experiments. All of that well-intentioned activity can be summarized rather easily.

Late onset Alz remains a common affliction of those who age beyond the 5 th decade of life. Late onset Alz affects women more than men.

Alz develops slowly with the early stages of the disease not being very noticeable.

Once Alz has progressed to the stage where there is marked loss of memory, the progression of the disease seems unstoppable. Said in other terms, we have no way of stopping the progression of Alz once clearly established. Many reasonable ideas about how to stop the progression of the disease have been tested; however, all tests of those ideas indicate that the ideas were not as reasonable as first conceived. No tested approach to develop a medical solution to Alz has not lead to a satisfactory conclusion. Currently, we just do not have a cure for advanced Alz and no vaccine to prevent the disease. There have been hundreds of tests of ideas about how to stop Alz and all tests have failed. If tomorrow a procedure or a medicine seemed likely to be a cure or preventive medicine, it will take years for that good outcome to be translated into a practical solution.

Advanced Alz is terrible, manifest by a complete loss of memory (loss of self) and becoming helpless. The advanced stages can last for many months and even years.

Epidemiological research (research into relationships of circumstances and a disease) has identified a number of signs that seem to have a relationship to the development of Alz. These relationships are called risk-factors. Some of these risk-factors may be causal events in the development of Alz.

Biological research into the nature of Alz has identified features of the disease. Among the features of the disease that seem to be particularly important is whether or not there is a regular healthy flow of fluids throughout the entire brain that removes accumulated waste from fluid of the brain. Yes, the activity of the cells of the brain does produce waste that needs to be removed and not accumulate. Further brain cells do die and when they die there is waste to be removed. Also, things like viruses and small particles in the air we breathe can get into the brain and they need to be removed promptly to prevent an escalation of damage.

So, what risk-factors are related to regular healthy flow of fluids throughout the brain. If we knew that, we might be able to prevent the development of Alz. We do know something about that. Features of our daily lives such as certain diets and regular vigorous exercise promote healthy fluid-flow throughout the brain. Healthy fluid-flow throughout the brain reduces a cause of damage to the brain (an accumulation of waste) and anything preventing brain-damage just seems good.

Recent research indicates that healthy sleep aids and abets waste removal from the brain. Chronic insomnia is a know risk-factor for Alz. Therefore, correcting chronic insomnia can contribute to preventing the development of Alz. There are known ways of correcting chronic insomnia by practicing certain behaviors. Taking what are called sleeping pills is not an effective way of correcting chronic insomnia and may even be harmful.

Biological research has identified another important feature of Alz. Many cases, maybe by far most of the cases, of Alz begins in the part of the brain whose function is the perception of scents (odors or odorants). The vulnerable part of the smell-brain is the part outside of the skull, the part that responds to chemicals in the air we breathe. Also, the risk-factor of lost ability to perceive scents is highly related to the development of Alz.

What known risk-factors are, in turn, related to lost ability to perceive scents (a sign of harm to the smell brain) that might be harmful to the beginning of the smell-brain and, therefore, be a causal event in the development of Alz? We can identify some of those potential harms. For example, events that overwhelm the tissue protecting the beginning of the smell-brain from harm would expose the smell-brain to harm. Events that might overwhelm the tissue protecting the smell-brain are excesses of viruses, bacteria and/or dirt in the air. Some drugs might be harmful to the tissue protecting the smell-brain.

If by our own behavior we can aid and abet healthy fluid-flow throughout the brain and by our own behavior prevent insults to the beginnings of the smell-brain, then we can reduce significantly our risk of developing Alz. We can do that by reducing eight critical risks for developing Alz, each by our own behavior.

What we do is to encourage behaviors that modify the physiology of the brain for the better and warn individuals about behaviors and events that might actually support the development of Alz.

Currently, reducing selected risks is the only known way of managing the overall risk of developing Alz. We wish to encourage you to attend to those risks one at a time until you have substantially reduced your risk of developing Alz.

With a little advice from us (what we do) and with your own behavior (what you can do), you can prevent the development of Alz.

About Us

Our mission is simple: To promote activities supporting healthy brains throughout life.

The Alzheimer’s Prevention Project consists of faculty and students at a science and technology focused university, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Also, we are a small business, Hexagon 18 Cherry Lane, LLC. Larry D. Reid, Ph.D., is the sole proprietor of that business. The business has funded the start-up of The Alzheimer’s Prevention Project. The Project has benefited from the work and intelligence of a large number of volunteers, mostly students at RPI, who have interacted with Faculty members, Professors Reid, Alicia A. Walf, Ph.D. and Richard Plotka, Ph.D.

We began the Project based on our understanding of the science associated with Alzheimer’s disease(Alz). We believe that the only viable way of reducing the prevalence of Alzheimer’s Disease is to prevent the conditions that initiate and sustain the early development of the disease. Fortunately, there are good reasons,
based on the science related to the disease itself and the science associated with aging, to suppose that there are activities that can be engaged that will prevent the disease from progressing from its early beginnings. The goal of the Project is to prevent early harbingers of the disease from becoming devastating.

The business does not have the resources to sustain a nation-wide attempt to recruit a large number of citizens to its website and then provide the necessary information, advice and opportunities to actually have an impact on the prevalence of Alzheimer’s Disease. Nevertheless, the Project has the goal of doing just that: reducing greatly the prevalence of Alzheimer’s Disease, one citizen at a time. The only means available for doing that is to engage the multiple resources that abound in our complex, commercial culture. Some very useful resources are embodied in the Federal Government (e.g., the National Institute on Aging) and successful business. We wish to bring to bear any useful resource that can be marshaled and that means interacting with profit making companies.

If the goal of the Project is to engage a very large number of citizens in activities that will reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease, it would be unwise to arrange to charge citizens a large amount of money to engage the opportunities presented by the site. Consequently, we have as standard operating procedure to keep the cost of engaging the full services of our website to an absolute minimum to make the site highly functional. This Project’s sole purpose is to prevent the development of Alzheimer’s Disease by many, many citizens by encouraging them to engage activities that will reduce the risk of the disease and that may include buying products and services that have been highly developed by successful companies.

We are not going to ask you to pay for our information and advice. Nevertheless, it does take considerable amounts of money to sustain a complex website and provide continuing updates to the website. Some of our advice will be to buy services and products that you may need to accomplish the goal of reducing your risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease as you age. We can make some money by being salespersons for some of these companies and hopefully that money will sustain the Project for many years as we work toward preventing Alzheimer’s Disease.

In keeping with our not-for-profit general organization and our personal integrity, we will not sell your information to others. We will do all we can to protect your privacy and guard against any malfeasance that might threaten our goal of doing work toward the prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease.

To summarize “about us,” we are a small group dedicated to reducing the prevalence of Alzheimer’s Disease by getting individuals to engage in activities that will reduce their risk of developing the disease. Our enterprise is to work toward preventing the disease and to do the best we can to engage you in the prevention of your potential for developing Alzheimer’s Disease. We ask for you cooperation and involvement with our goals.

Contact

Currently, we do not have the resources to sustain personal telephone conversations. However, we shall try to answer all questions by an e-mail: Alz.Prevent.Proj@gmail.com

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