Molissa wrote:...
I just turned 40, and have a mother that was diagnosed with AD 4 years ago. She is 69. My dad takes care of her at home He is 70, is deaf in one ear, and has a very low education level....Based on everything I've read I'm afraid for my future. I've been on low carb for over a year but I'm unsure where to go from here. Any help from you or direction would be appreciated!...Melissa
A warm hug from someone who is almost your mom's age, Melissa. At 67, I know that your dad must be one terrific man to be taking care of your mom. I also know that it is perfectly okay to be overwhelmed, unsure, afraid. And just plain mad at the lack of clear answers about what your own risk is, and what to do with all this uncertainty!
So here are just a few starting tips for what will be a rollercoaster for at least a while:
1. Genes are not destiny, and neither is any one decision you make in the next 10 minutes or 10 months!
I have ApoE 4/4 and all the "research" says I should be like your mom: diagnosed at age 68 with Alzheimers. In fact, my maternal grandmother died of a stroke at 45; my dad died of cardiac arrest at age 67. And I have not exactly been the poster child for healthy eating! Yet my coronary arteries are clean, my brain is still passing tests in a clinical trial for people at high risk of Alzheimer's. You have about 50% of your mom's gene and 50% of your dad's. But the 50% of your mom's may be mostly from a long-lived, healthy grandparent! And the 50% of your dad's is certainly at least his strong determination!
2.
You can pick one thing that seems doable in your schedule and just up that a bit for now. Exercise is one of the factors with the strongest evidence for helping our brains and hearts--and it only needs to be moderate for 30-60 minutes several times a week. Interval (walking and then jogging and then walking) is an easy way to fit it in. You can give yourself permission not to worry about getting a Ph.D in reading every post on this forum! One or two of Stavia's "basic strategies" is just fine for now.
3.
Clinical trials and the advocacy and observations by people on this forum who are experts on prevention are going to make it much more likely that people like you and my three children (all in their 30's and all ApoE 3/4) will be fine--because you are doing so much we didn't at your ages, and because the pace of research into prevention (and the strategies we already know) are so rapidly improving.
4. Your mother may have multiple risk factors that you don't. Many women of my generation were strongly encouraged NOT to exercise and schools did not have any Title IX requirements for sports until after your mom and I graduated. (Synchronized swimming is not a sport!) We also were often raised on cheap, highly processed, high saturated fat foods, and then later were told that high carb diets were best for us! Your mom may have lived in an area with poor water or air quality, since I can remember when my local lake was so polluted that swimming was prohibited and fish had toxic levels of mercury. We lived with "acid rain" from factories several states away and DDT was a common pesticide. I didn't have a cholesterol test until I was 50, and no doctor ever asked about my father's heart disease until recently.
5. Your dad also may be a very sharp guy in spite of his early exit from education. One of the three Medal of Honor winners from D-Day left school in rural VA when his mother died in his 8th grade year to help support his 7 siblings. Most of my mother's siblings did the same. I would encourage you to talk with your dad about specific ways he could get some help with your mom's care, ranging from Meals on Wheels, to home-based aide support, to respite, to even local church ladies coming to spend time with her or talk her to the beauty salon. (My mother-in-law loved trips to the beauty salon, followed by lunch at Tim Horton's, which she called "that place where the Irish eat." (Just because names may escape us, doesn't mean the taste of good food or appreciation for a nice hairdo is gone!) His local Alzheimer's Association is a great place to start, as is the local Office on the Aging.
I hope you ask us lots more questions, and tell us what keeps you awake at night. We're here to make each other feel strong, empowered and able to advocate for what we need to live our very best lives. Hugs from a "mom" in Virginia.
) That "quote" sends them an email notification, like you got from my reply. 
