FREE BOOK: Introduction AVOID ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE by Richard L. Hansler, PhD and Shannon Saadey

Thanks go first of all to my wife, Wanda, for her patience and support as I continue to try to warn people of the dangers that lie in the use of light at night. I also want to thank my children and grandchildren for their support in encouraging me to continue doing what I love to do, well past normal retirement age.

Next I want to thank my partners in this business venture of providing products that not only help people sleep better but reduce their risk of illness: Dr. Edward Carome, Vilnis Kubulins, Daniel Carome, and Dr. Martin Alpert.

Thanks go to Shannon Saadey, a John Carroll University student interested in public health, who wrote chapter 5.

Special thanks to Mark Thomsen, my son-in-law, who designed the cover.

INTRODUCTION

In 2014 almost half a million people were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in the United States. Two thirds were women. Most were very old but a few percent were less than 65 years old. In the United States about 5 million are living with Alzheimer’s disease. There is no known cure. The lack of a cure makes finding ways to reduce the risk the most promising approach.

Since it is not at all clear what causes Alzheimer’s disease, it is hard to know what to avoid. We will examine some likely suspects.

We will also look at what is known to be beneficial and how the lack of it may be increasing the risk. We are talking about melatonin and how using ordinary light in the evening robs the body of its full supply.

In my earlier book, Light: The Silent Killer, I examined the evidence that using ordinary light in the hours before bedtime is doubling the incidence of breast and prostate cancer. We can now add Alzheimer’s disease to the list of diseases caused by the ordinary light bulb. In each case it is the loss of melatonin, resulting from the evening exposure to ordinary light that is responsible for the increased risk of the disease.

If one searches PubMed.gov (a government-funded medical abstracting website) with the words “Alzheimer’s” and “melatonin,” one finds 380 references. The earliest paper listed is by Dr. Charles Maurizi, a pathologist, now retired. He warned in 1987 that a lack of melatonin causes dementia. Dementia is an early stage of Alzheimer’s disease. In his words, “ A chronic melatonin deficiency, with loss of dreams, could cause dementia.” Twenty-eight years later I’m issuing the same warning. Is anyone listening?

Rather than footnoting references as footnotes, I have listed the PubMed Identification (PMID), which is the number by which PubMed identifies abstracts. Readers wishing to see the source of the information may go to the pubmed.gov website and type the number in the search box. In many cases a free copy of the entire paper is available for downloading. This website is a national treasure. Not as beautiful as a National Park, but well worth visiting, if you haven’t been there.

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