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Preventing Alzheimer’s Disease - now its fruit and vegetable juices
(April 2007)

Alzheimer’s is a terrible disease afflicting 4.5 million Americans.  There is no known, adequately documented effective treatment or preventive, though there are some drugs that can slow its progression.  But, there are many inadequately documented dietary and life style approaches to prevention or delay in onset.  These include: regular physical activity; regular involvement in a variety of activities; greater mental vigor; a low saturated fat diet; increased intake of fish and omega-3 fatty acids; greater intake of certain antioxidants; a good intake of fruits and vegetables; and regular consumption of wine.  Now an article in the American Journal of Medicine in September 2006 reports on the remarkable effect of fruit and vegetable juices.

The investigators studied the occurrence of Alzheimer’s in 1,589 Japanese-Americans, average age about 72 years.  During a six-year followup, 81 developed Alzheimer’s, on 63 of whom an adequate baseline dietary history was taken.  Those who drank fruit or vegetable juices one to two times a week had a non-significant 16 percent reduction in risk of Alzheimer’s; those who drank such juices three or more times a week had an extraordinary more than 70 percent reduction in occurrence of Alzheimer’s.  The size of individual cups or glasses of the juices was not analyzed.

Noting that this is the first study on fruit and vegetable juices, the authors say that confirmatory studies are needed before drawing firm conclusions.

Commentary: This is clearly a preliminary study.  The number of cases in each group of fruit-vegetable juice intake was relatively small and there was no assessment of which types of fruit and vegetable juices provided the benefit.  The investigators did show that it was not the antioxidant vitamins A, C, or beta carotene that were responsible for the benefit.

According to this and other studies, if you drink orange juice three times a week, eat oily fish once a week, exercise a few times a week, and keep your mind active, it would be very unlikely you will develop Alzheimer’s.  Would that it were so simple.  The fact is that, at present, we do not know how to prevent Alzheimer’s; some of the proposed preventives might work, but, then again, they might not; and, if there is a benefit, it is probably very modest.

At the same time, this interesting, but preliminary, study was reported, another study in mice probably offered a lot more for the future.  The investigators created an Alzheimer-like disease in mice with the characteristic Alzheimer plaques in the brain -- these “Alzheimer” mice suffered from memory loss; then the investigators injected the mice with a substance that boosted the activity of a “memory” enzyme and restored nerve function.  The treatment also improved memory in these mice.  This extraordinarily exciting study gets at the basic mechanisms of Alzheimer’s and, in the long run, is the approach that will give us the ability to treat, and perhaps even prevent, the disease Alzheimer's.

Dai, Q., et al.  Fruit and vegetable juice and Alzheimer Disease.  The American Journal of Medicine.  Vol 119 (September) Pgs 751-759.  2006.