Brain Salt won’t help.
Grim indeed. I wouldn’t be surprised if the spike was related to the increase of chemicals like those in Febreeze or Downy, and other industrial chemicals sold to consumers in the guise of “cleanliness”. Or even the miasma of all of them combined.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has just put out a grim report about Alzheimer’s disease in the United States.
Death rates from Alzheimer’s climbed 55 percent from 1999 to 2014, CDC found, and the number of Americans afflicted is likely to rise rapidly in the coming years. About 5.5 million people 65 years and older have the disease — a wretched and fatal form of dementia that erases memories and ultimately can destroy mental and physical capacity. By 2050, that’s expected to more than double to 13.8 million people.
The report is based on state- and county-level death certificate data from the National Vital Statistics System, and CDC researchers said the sharp increase in death rates may be due to the aging population, earlier diagnosis and greater reporting by physicians.
(click here to continue reading U.S. death rate from Alzheimer’s rose dramatically over 15 years. Why? – The Washington Post.)
All Your Brains Are Belong To Us
The CDC adds:
The findings in this report are subject to at least three limitations. First, several factors relating to the assigned cause of death might affect estimates of death involving Alzheimer’s. Evidence suggests that Alzheimer’s deaths reported on death certificates might be underestimates of the actual number of Alzheimer’s deaths in the United States (8). Because cases were identified using the underlying cause of death, persons with Alzheimer’s but a non-Alzheimer’s underlying cause of death were not identified in this analysis. Second, complications from Alzheimer’s, such as pneumonia, might be reported as the cause of death although the actual underlying cause of death, Alzheimer’s, was not reported on the death certificate. Finally, a person with Alzheimer’s might have dementia assigned as the underlying cause of death rather than a more specific diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.
Some modifiable risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as obesity and fewer years of education, have been identified as factors associated with an increased risk for dementia (9,10). Although some treatments have been demonstrated to alleviate symptoms of Alzheimer’s, there is no cure or definitive means of prevention (2). Until Alzheimer’s can be prevented, slowed, or stopped, caregiving for persons with advanced Alzheimer’s will remain a demanding task. An increasing number of Alzheimer’s deaths coupled with an increasing number of patients dying at home suggests that there is an increasing number of caregivers of persons with Alzheimer’s. It is likely that these caregivers might benefit from interventions such as education, respite care, and case management that can lessen the potential burden of caregiving.
(click here to continue reading Deaths from Alzheimer’s Disease — United States, 1999–2014 | MMWR.)