Tea vs Alzheimer’s Disease

A lonely journey in the end

The emotional tax on my sister was heavy. She had to deal with the frustrations of both individuals.

That dragged on for almost two years and we finally made the painful decision of sending my mother to a private nursing home. In the beginning we made use of her forgetfulness to try to convince her that was her new home. I had no idea what emotional trauma that must have caused her for suddenly separating from her familiar faces and environment, and having to face so many strangers.

Caring for Alzheimer’s is extremely costly

The cost of care for a family with the disease is extremely high. It can be in the form of the money given out for the enduring years for medical bills, to hire caregivers, nurses, or to pay nursing homes or hospitals. In USA alone, this cost amounted to 200 billion in 2012 and rose to 226 billion in 2015 ¹.

“These costs will only continue to soar in the coming years given the projected rapidly escalating prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease as the baby boomers age.”… Alzheimer’s Association ( U.S.A. )

In addition to this is the costs on the family for attending to the patient in the form of time, and physical and psychological stress. To speak from my own experience, I can say it is a lot more taxing collectively to the family than the very high monthly bill for the private nursing home.

To have to keep a patient at home without a nurse or proper caregiver would have been destructive to a person’s life. Unfortunately, many are forced into such a situation.

In the US, it is estimated the indirect tangible loss ( not counting the intangible costs such as emotional stress and related effects ) costs to a caregiving member of the family average to almost USD 304,000 ². How many months of your salary will that be?

Alzheimer’s can happen to anyone

If you think you are too young to think about it, or do not know anyone with Alzheimer’s or whose family has one, don’t think it is so far away from you.

In Hong Kong — where the average life expectancy is highest in the world — the only study about the extent of the disease in the demographics ³ estimates that there is one patient in every 10 individuals of age 65 or older ⁴. That implies there are 110,000 cases, or one Alzheimer’s patient to every 68 persons ⁵. The lack of official study figure reflects the government’s lack of preparedness for the disease ⁶, which is reflected on the extreme shortage of proper care facilities and qualified workers. That was why we had to send our mom to a private nursing home, which is extremely costly and yet poorly staffed and equipped. This in turn costs tremendously on the patient’s family for all sorts of attention. In another word, if the cost to the family is USD 304,000 in the US, it can be in reality a lot higher in Hong Kong, not counting intangible costs. It seems so in my mother’s case.

In the US, 5.3 million are suffering from the disease and the number is quickly growing. Worldwide, retrievable figure is 18 million and it will double by 2025 ⁷.

Charles Kao and wife May-wan when the scientist-inventor was president of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Mrs Kao has been actively working on building better awareness of Alzheimer’s Disease after her husband diagnosis

Contrary to popular belief, the disease happens not only to those with low intellectual activities. An example maybe the Nobel laureate and Father of fibre optics, Dr Charles Kao, whose invention makes possible the high speed internet that we have all taken for granted nowadays. The disease is non-discriminatory, but twice likely to attack women than men, and three times more likely when one is over 80 than 65.

Although the disease attacks mostly people over 65, people younger than that are not exempted. In the US, it is estimated that there are 200,000 persons with this “early onset” kind of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Finding a therapy

No one know for sure what causes this costly and fatal dread. Some see genetics and environment as factors. How the neuron cells in the brain is destroyed, however, has been observed, as described in the beginning of this article.

Basing on these observations, scientists are beginning to discover how the substances in tea and other flavonoid-rich plant products can be highly contributive in the fight against Alzheimer’s Disease ⁸. Studies prove that tea drinking helps to improve cognitive ability. Tea and its substances reduce oxidative stress and damages on the neuron cells and reduce the formation of plaques. In another word, evidences point to tea as a hopeful preventive measure against Alzheimer’s Disease.

Unique in tea: Theanine

Theanine content in various quality grades of green teas and oolongs
Dissolvable μg per gram of tealeaves ⁹

Theanine (L-theanine), a substance found in all varieties of tea, but significantly more abundant in high quality green tea and high altitude oolongs ¹⁰, has long been known to have protective effects on the nervous system ¹¹ and on lowering of blood pressure ¹².

Scientists in Korea did a detailed experiment to see how specifically this natural substance could deal with the mechanisms of Alzheimer’s Disease ¹³. They have found convincing data: lab mice that were infected with the bad protein plaques Aß were less affected when they were fed with theanine through their drinking water. The more theanine, the less affected.

Read on »