Age And Alzheimer's Disease: What's The Connection?

Age may be nothing but a number when it comes to your social life — but medically, there is a deeper connection between your chronological age and the conditions you're at risk of than you'd like to think.

You may be able to go skydiving or deep water diving even during retirement but as the body ages, it naturally degrades. Numerous remedies and concoctions have been developed to try to fight the effects of aging. But unfortunately for all, we have still not discovered the "fountain of youth" and everyone has to face the consequences of human mortality. 

What exactly is Alzheimer's disease? 

Alzheimer's disease is a condition that can strike as the brain degrades. As we age, damaged proteins begin to accumulate in the brain just as a by-product of everyday living. In some cases, this debris is harmless and a person enjoy a mentally sharp old age, but most people aren't so lucky. These proteins can start to damage brain structures, and problems with concentration, memory and problem-solving ensue.

You don't have Alzheimer's just because you can't remember the name of the cashier who served you this morning or your niece's birthday, though — the normal aging process can mess with your memory, too. So what distinguishes Alzheimer's from normal aging? 

Doctors still don't exactly know the precise cause of Alzheimer's disease, but the predominant theory is that these proteins in the brain accumulate at a faster rate compared to patients just aging naturally. This can be caused by a number of underlying conditions like hypertension, diabetes, depression and low education to list just a few of the many reversible causes. As these proteins accumulate, they start to damage many structures in the brain all at once. As a result, a person with Alzheimer's can go from living independently to needing help with absolutely everything they do in a matter of a few years. 

A few other theories explain the link between aging and Alzheimer's, but for the most part, it falls into the same type of pattern. DNA is constantly being replicated as new cells replace older cells. The older we get, the higher thr risk of errors in DNA replication. Once well-copied DNA fragments can begin to become shorter and shorter and have more errors in replication.

An easy analogy to help understand this concept could be your quality of work after a long day. Most of us begin the day fresh and well-rested, just like a human body in childhood and adolescence. As the day goes on, however, mental fatigue sets in. We may make more typos or confuse simple information as a result. We may catch some of these mistakes and continue with work without any real consequences. By the end of the day, we may be so tired that we don't even understand what we've just written.

This is roughly what happens to our DNA as we age. By the time we are old, our cells are so exhausted from performing these tasks that proofreading proteins that catch mistakes in DNA replication miss mistakes all the time. The only difference is that you can call it a day and redo bad work first thing the next morning. Our body does not have such a reset button. 

The link between Alzheimer's disease and aging

Until we are able to find out how to reverse these DNA changes, we are doomed to suffer from the process of growing older. Brain function will begin to decline — and if it does so at a rapid rate, you may be eventually diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

The main factors that help explain this significant increase would be the rise in chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes and hypertension as well as the fact there is a disproportionally-high amount of middle-aged people on Earth at this point in time so as they age, there will be more elderly people in the next decade. 

As we dissect this data further, we can see a true tendency when it comes to the actual age of a patient and their diagnosis with Alzheimer's. About 4.5 percent of the population over the age of 65 has Alzheimer's disease. In people over 70, however, the prevalence is nearly 10 percent. Over a third of people over the age of 85 have Alzheimer's, one study found. This generalized trend means that the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease doubles every five years after the age of 65. 

It's obvious, then, that here is a link between a patient's age and the onset of Alzheimer's disease. It is important to remember, however, that getting older does not guarantee you will ultimately be diagnosed with the condition. Aging is a component that may only magnify preexisting brain damage. It is something we are unable to control and change, so don't worry that you may develop Alzheimer's disease just because you are getting older.