“No one in my family had/has Alzheimer’s, so I don’t need to worry about it.”
Well… that’s not true. Even if no one in your family had Alzheimer’s, it doesn’t mean you couldn’t develop it. A neuroscientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Edmund and Lily Safra Center for Brain Science, Hermona Soreq, says that this is a commonly spread myth about Alzheimer’s.
She explains that although some individuals inherit some mutations that can lead to this disease, this happens quite rarely. Most Alzheimer’s disease patients developed this condition due to an unhealthy lifestyle, not because of genetics.
The author of Outsmarting Alzheimer’s, Kenneth S. Kosik, MD, says that we are actually all at risk of developing Alzheimer’s, adding that after age 85, there’s a 50 percent chance of getting it.
