Siobhan said:

>There's no doubt in my mind that Alzheimer's disease is one of the many
>diseases to come from generations of poor nutrition and toxins in our
>environment.


I would expect that such things may exacerbate the onset, but in 80%
or more
of Alzheimer's patients, there is an abnormality in a particular gene
called
APOE, for Apolipoprotein E.  (BTW, some people with the gene, maybe
10-20%,
do not get Alzheimer's Disease; I wonder what they eat and how they
live,
and whether that is why they have the gene but not the disease.
However,
the research submitted to my site is focused on developing a drug to
treat
the gene.)

I designed and still maintain an intranet web site for the APOE
researchers
studying possible treatments, approaching it via the gene rather than
the
symptoms.  It is probably more effective to attack the problem either
by its
cause or its triggers, because treating symptoms is palliative rather
than
preventive.

To explain my belief about the role of the APOE gene in Alzheimer's
with an
example, I was not born with a bad back, it was fine when I was a kid,
till
I started working. The way I found out I had a bad back was that it
was so
easy to injure, but it is that way because from my parents who also
both had
back problems, I inherited a back structure  that is susceptible to
injury.

I inherited the susceptibility to injure my back (like people inherit
the
APOE gene) and then what I did, or something in my environment,
precipitated
the problem.

I would imagine that if the right foods and activities could be
identified,
that a lot more than 10-20% of people with the APOE gene could manage
to
live without developing Alzheimer's. The dietary and environmental
aspects
that precipitate Alzheimer's are well worth studying!

Cheers,             laurie