Scientists have assembled a “timeline” of the unseen progress of Alzheimer’s before symptoms appear.
A team at Washington University School of Medicine looked at families with a genetic risk of the disease.
Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, they say signs appeared up to 25 years before the expected onset of the disease.
Those who do so maintain their ability to do everyday tasks better than people simply given anti-dementia drugs, found German researchers.
They believe the approach could help transform treatment for those in care homes living with mild to moderate dementia.
The academics came to the conclusions after studying the effects of their specially designed programme on residents with varying levels dementia in five Bavarian nursing homes.
Fish may help to protect the brain against the memory loss and cell damage caused by Alzheimer’s disease, scientists reported yesterday.
A study of mice carrying a human gene that causes Alzheimer’s disease suggests that a diet rich in an omega-3 fatty acid called DHA slows progression of the disorder in its later stages.
“This is the first proof that our diets affect how our brain cells communicate with each other under the duress of Alzheimer’s,” said Prof Greg Cole of the University of California, Los Angeles, senior author of the paper in the journal Neuron. “