Even if you’re 80 or older, it’s not too late for daily exercise to reduce your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study published last year in the peer-reviewed journal, Neurology.
Although scientists aren’t sure how to explain the link, researchers have said engaging one’s brain in mentally stimulating activities, spending time in social groups and eating healthier can reduce your risk.
In 2009, a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that people eating a so-called Mediterranean diet and exercising regularly were at lower risk — by as much as 50 percent.
The idea that this type of evidence suggests people who make a habit of exercising or eating healthy are less likely to get Alzheimer’s — a brain disease that saps away not just memories but, gradually, identity — is the cornerstone research by Dr. Gary Isaacs, an assistant professor of biology at Liberty University and recent recipient of the 2013-14 Alzheimer’s and Related Diseases Research Award Fund.
Isaacs received $40,000 from fund to continue his efforts in understanding how to prevent the disease, bringing his research total to $90,000 since coming to LU in 2009.
“Science and a lot of the technology that really gets to the answer quickly and efficiently, that technology many times is just expensive,” Isaacs said. “There are a lot of consumables, when you’re conducting research, and someone has to pay that bill.”
The Delaware native first aspired to attend medical school, so he enrolled in a pre-med program at LU and later received his bachelor’s degree in biology in 1999. While studying at the university, he had the opportunity to get involved in an Alzheimer’s research project with Dr. David DeWitt, who began studying the disease in 1991 and is the chairman of Liberty’s Department of Biology & Chemistry.
At the time, Isaacs thought the work was rather interesting, even writing his senior thesis on it, but he still had his mind set on medical school.
After graduation, he took a job teaching biology and chemistry at a high school in his hometown of Lincoln, Del., while waiting to hear back from the medical schools he’d applied to.
“Long story short, I just fell in love teaching,” Isaacs said. “I enjoyed it so much. Here I am going to work and I’m like, ‘This isn’t work.’ I realized that when you’re doing what you like, every day is the weekend. That’s when I said, ‘This is what I want to do.’”
Eventually, he enrolled at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., spending the next six years earning his PhD in molecular biology, before returning to LU and commencing another round of research to uncover new data regarding Alzheimer’s.
The crux of his studies has to do with how the control of genes plays an important role in the development of the disease. Some diseases are caused by a genetic mutation, or permanent change in one or more specific genes. If a person inherits, for instance, a genetic mutation that causes a certain disease, then he or she usually will get the disease.
Sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, and early-onset familial Alzheimer's are examples of inherited genetic disorders. But Isaacs is discovering there’s no proof one particular gene causes Alzheimer's.
“Even though there are some cases of the disease, where you can find a gene that’s messed up, that’s mutated, and they have that disease, you’re talking about that representing less than 10 percent of the cases,” he said. “It tells us mutations, alone, don’t really describe this disease.”
Isaacs hopes to show a pattern that may prove many diseases are a result of changes in the chemical modifications of a person’s DNA, which, he said, can be altered based on forming better eating habits and watching stress levels.
DeWitt seems pleased with his former student’s progress in the field of research.
“What’s especially exciting about Isaacs work is he has a potential link between diet and the regulation of genes,” he said. “This is some of the most exciting research in Alzheimer's that I’ve seen in a long time.”
After years of studying the disease, DeWitt said scientists are trying to determine what the fundamental cause of Alzheimer's is.
“We know all about how the disease process works and what happens and the effects,” he said. “But nobody has cracked the nut on the initial trigger, what sets the ball rolling.”
While under Isaacs’ tutelage, Noor Taher, a biology major who graduated from Liberty earlier this year and is studying for his PhD at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, performed research on epigenetic markers (heritable changes in gene activity) associated with the progression of Alzheimer's.
Taher said if scientists map these changes, they might be able to work on a cure or treatment that would seek to reverse them.
“I guess, at this stage in point, it’s kind of speculative,” he said. “But it could be preventive. It could also be therapeutic. That is possible. Theoretically, it is possible to reverse these effects because they are reversible.”
Isaacs said he’s confident he and his team’s research is not only working toward prevention, but will implicate a bad diet as a cause of the disease.
“The nice thing is that this would not just be a specific paradigm for Alzheimer's disease, but for many diseases,” he said. “And all that research is being done right here at Liberty with undergraduate students. It’s amazing.”
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