How Not to Die

[karelena]

Interesting review article from 2014 about AD in Sub-Saharan Africa:
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijad/2014/195750/

[SusanJ]

Great points about the age issue, karelena.

[circular]

Good point K.

Also the region-specific genetic variants is no small matter. At the opposite end of vegans using this study to support their agenda is the hflc community often referring to the high fat diet among healthy Eskimos as 'evidence' that hflc is okay if not superior. Sometime in the last couple years or so they identified a genetic variant the Eskimos had that helped them handle their very high fat diet. On my phone, so hard to go looking for it.

[Harrison]

Regarding the Yoruba study, they only looked at confirmed AD cases, so lifespan is not an issue. As I mentioned in a previous post, E4/4 in the Yoruba population had the same chance of developing AD as E4/4 African-Americans in Indianapolis. The diet/lifestyle component seemed to make a difference for E3/4, where in Yoruba the E3/4 looked like E3s, and in Indianpolis E3/4 are midway between E4/4 and E3s.

I completely agree with all the statements about people with an agenda misusing this paper. In the end, I think all you can say is that the American diet/lifestyle is probably worse for E3/4s, which is not news to anybody here.

By the way, I was able to find free text on the study from Ecuador saying that E4 does not seem to affect AD rates. It's underpowered which may explain the lack of effect. It also explained that the E4 rate in Ecuador is among the lowest in Latin America. An different publication indicated that Ecuador had a high E4 rate.

This all just goes to show how little we really know.

[Bettylacy]

"This all just goes to show how little we really know."

THat is why we not only need more reseach dollars but we really need more people to be tested especially african american, latinos, native americans, and the rest of us mostly Heinz 57's like me. 23 and me seems like a likely place to begin focusing on more research especially with their paired ancestors information.

[Russ]

Denise Minger does a great job of reviewing Dr. Michael Greger’s new book, How Not to Die, in this recent article. Her review is both complimentary and critical, pointing out his tendency to “cherry pick” the evidence to support his hypotheses. There’s an excellent section on diet and dementia, with some focus on ApoE4.

But what about genetics? Here, too, Greger serves up a plant-based solution with a bowl of picked cherries.

...

So, deactivating apoE4 as a ticking Alzheimer’s bomb may have less to do with plant-based eating and more to do with common features of hunter-gatherer lifestyles: feast-famine cycles, high physical activity, and unprocessed diets that aren’t necessarily limited to plants (39).

Sorry I missed when posted, Julie. Still love Ms. Minger's ability to dissect other claims objectively. Just wanted to note that I continue to also believe myself that her summary statement most coherently fits the full array of data we presently have.

[buck3Maureen]

At the IFM conference Terry Wahls posted a global Alzheimer's prevalence map of the earth sourced from the WHO in 2011. I can't remember from the lecture whether there was any reason given for the worldwide discrepancy, but the US, Canada, England, Western Europe, and Australia looked like they had the worst prevalence. Could toxins also be a factor in the higher numbers?
Maureen

[Harrison]

Here's a table I cobbled together between AD cases per 100000 people and ApoE4 allele rates (% of population with at least 1 allele):

Code: Select all

Rank	Country		AD Rate E4 Allele rate
1	   FINLAND		53.77	0.215
2	   USA		    45.58	0.110
3	   CANADA		 35.5	 0.150
4	   ICELAND		34.08	0.164
5	   SWEDEN		 32.41	0.205
6	   SWITZERLAND  32.25	0.109
7	   NORWAY		 30.24	0.174
8	   DENMARK		29.53	0.170
9	   NETHERLANDS  29.32	0.154
10	  BELGIUM		27.23	0.128
11	  SPAIN		  26.9	 0.094
12	  AUSTRALIA	 25.91	0.165
13	  FRANCE		 25.62	0.114
14	  UK		     24.35	0.129
15	  CUBA		   22.38	0.130
16	  CHILE		  21.03	0.137
17	  URUGUAY	   20.74	not reported
18	  ISRAEL		 19.9	 0.151
19	  NEW ZEALAND  19.02	0.141
20	  IRELAND		17.7	 0.171

USA, Switzerland, Belgium, and Spain jump out to me as having disproportionately lower E4 rates vs. more AD cases. Finland has both the highest AD rate in the world and the highest E4 rate outside of Africa. Sweden has a similar E4 rate to Finland, but lower AD rate. I've mentioned this here in other posts, and some have suggested a particularly high rate of alcohol use in Finland vs. Sweden could be a contributing factor.

A caveat here is that the larger and more genetically diverse countries like the U.S. are a bit harder to pin down. The E4 rate is likely to be higher and lower in some pockets.

Sources:
http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/caus ... y-country/
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/6704176