November 26, 2007 11:05 AM
Alzheimer's Gets Ink
Recently, an acquaintance of mine, who is in her early forties, was commenting on her own forgetfulness. She jokingly said something like "I guess Alzheimer's is setting in! Won't be long now!"
Uh-oh. Where did these feelings come from? Although I don't know her well, I'm pretty sure she wasn't trying to be mean, so I (politely, I think) pointed out to her that many people suffer from this debilitating disease, including my own mother. Let's just say the ensuing discussion didn't go very well. And I don't think I need to develop a "thicker skin", by the way, or learn to take a joke. Grr.
Although I was perturbed at the way this woman said it, apparently, memory loss is quite common in your forties and fifties these days, and a book called Carved in Sand, by Cathryn Jakobson Ramin, has some pretty interesting information on the topic, as well as on Alzheimer's Disease. You can check out Salon.com's interview with the author in the article, The mind's missing pieces.
And also in the news, I found an interesting article in Time magazine--Is Alzheimer's a Form of Diabetes?. The magazine reports that American researchers claim they've found a link between insulin and Alzherimer's.
