What the recent NIH Expert Panel on Alzheimer’s Prevention Means – and Doesn’t Mean

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brainpicIn late April 2010, an inde­pen­dent expert pan­el orga­nized by the NIH released a thought­ful report on the state of the sci­ence for pre­ven­tion of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease and cog­ni­tive decline*. The report sum­ma­rizes the panel’s review of the sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­ture by saying:

“Firm con­clu­sions can­not be drawn about the asso­ci­a­tion of mod­i­fi­able risk fac­tors with cog­ni­tive decline or Alzheimer’s disease.”

Which was basi­cal­ly report­ed as “noth­ing can pre­vent Alzheimer’s Disease.”

Which is very true. And also very dif­fer­ent from what most read­ers may assume it means.

Note: You can keep read­ing the arti­cle What the recent NIH Expert Pan­el on Alzheimer’s Pre­ven­tion Means – and Doesn’t Mean in the web­site of the Amer­i­can Soci­ety of Aging (arti­cle link opens PDF). ASA recent­ly asked me to write a cou­ple of arti­cles on lat­est brain fit­ness and cog­ni­tive health trends for their Min­dAlert ini­tia­tive, and this is the first of two.