In The MIND Center at the University Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson there are resources for the fifty-seven-thousand Mississippians who are living with dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
It's also a place where clinicians and researchers come together to find a cure. Dr. Kim Tarver is chief of Geriatrics and Director of Clinical Services for the center. They treat and educate the public, but they are also a research institution.
Tarver said that recent drug research for Alzheimer's disease has brought into question the longstanding theory behind its cause.
“We basically have been going on the Amyloid hypothesis that there are abnormal amyloids and tau proteins that accumulate in the brain and in the neurons, but but there is evidence now that goes against that hypothesis,” Tarver explains. “Some of the drugs that have come along that target those proteins - in actually getting them out of the brain - have failed to produce any clinical benefit,” she said.
There is evidence that the risk factors for cardiovascular disease are the same as those for having dementia and Alzheimer’s. Here is where Tarver adds that mitigating cardiovascular disease with exercise and diet equates to mitigating the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.
“We already know this,” Tarver says, “daily aerobic exercise is protective. Keeping your cholesterol low, keeping high blood pressure controlled, and if you have diabetes – keeping that under control. These things make a big difference in how you do in the long run.”
Tarver said that UMMC is actively recruiting people to participate in the university's study on aging.