We recently found out that my grandmother, who has Alzheimer's disease, is E3/3. For most of her life, she has been eating a low-fat, gluten-free diet that included plenty of green vegetables, but also ample dairy products such as yogurt and milk, carbohydrates such as rice, fruit, oats and potatoes, and legumes. She has also had a very bad sweet tooth her whole life. She enjoyed walking and gardening, but didn't do much strenuous exercise. Her weight has never been a problem.
Although she is E3/3, she has many other SNPs that we believe contributed to the development of the disease. These include:
- Methylation: issues with MTHFR, MTR and COMT.
- Inflammation: issues with IL-6, IL-1 and TNFA.
- Oxidative stress: issues with eNOS, GPx1 and CAT.
- Insulin sensitivity: issues with PPARG and TCF7L2.
- Detoxification: a GSTM1 deletion and reduced activity of GSTP1.
This is quite a cocktail, and naturally my mom and I are concerned that as E4 carriers, our odds are pretty bad. However, at least we have knowledge about prevention that my grandmother didn't have when she was younger.
We are especially interested in learning more about what we can do to compensate for a GSTM1 deletion, which my mom also has. Any suggestions other than eating more cruciferous and allium vegetables? Should we consider supplementation, and are there biomarkers that we can keep track of?