START CARING FOR YOUR MEMORY WHEN YOU ARE YOUNG.

A patient came into see his doctor. "Doctor I have a serious memory problem." "When did the problem start?" The patient thought for a moment or two and then said; "Sorry doctor, but I can't remember." This is probably not the funniest joke on my blogs, but strangely it is exactly true in my case. I knew that I had had a poor memory for over twenty years, but I couldn't really remember when it had started. As a child I had a marvellous memory and I could never understand why adults had such memory loss difficulties. I could remember whole conversations verbatim. As a young adult I could drive for 500 miles and remember every twist and turn on the twisting country roads of those days. I learned to speak fluent French and Spanish after living in each country for six months. I think that my memory loss began when I was about 40 which is a long time ago now. But of course in the beginning it was a very slow erosion. As the years went on I coped and put up with my childrens' jokes. On the positive side I exercised my dogs every day. I meditated most days and I read voraciously. I also started and sold various businesses, some moderately sucessfull and some flops, but of course all the things that I was doing were positive for my memory, so why was it deteriorating? There is an argument that says that memory loss, dementia and alzheimers are very largely an inherited condition. My knowledge of the subject is not yet sufficient for me to form a deffinate judgement, I am still learning and pondering on my own condition. Certainly in the three months since my memory loss was diagnosed as dementia I have learned a great deal about alzheimers and dementia. In my own case I have reached the conclusion that heavy drinking did a lot of damage to my brain and indeed lots of white dead brain cells are visible in the X rays. Note that I said 'heavy' drinking. My late wife and I drank but we were never drunk, but I now realize that the big problem with alcohol is that ones ability to drink without apparent signs of drunken stupor increases the longer one drinks and it is very difficult to drink very little. Of course we knew that we shouldn't drink too much for a number of health reasons, but memory loss was never mentioned back then. If it had been we would probably ignored it, but for the new generations taking over you should be very aware that alcohol will certainly not help the memory process and will almost certainly do some damage to the brain as well as all the other parts. Just to clarify the drinking issue, personally I think that very moderate drinking is probably quite good. However, if you can't drink moderately, don't drink! Smoking is of course another matter. We grew up in the age of the Marlborough Cowboy', who rode the range puffing healthily away at his supposedly healthy cigarette!If my memory serves me correctly he was dead at 45. Even some doctors claimed that smoking was beneficial to clear the nasal passage etc! I started smoking cigarettes quite late and stopped quite early. Then after a ten year gap as I became a little more prosperous I turned to cigars. We were told that cigarettes were definitely harmful, but provided you didn't inhale the cigar smoke you would be fine. Of course if you are a serious cigar conoiseur you never inhale the smoke, you taste it on the tongue. So what could be unhealthy about that? Three years ago I was on the verge of a heart attack and I was very lucky to have a great doctor one Heini Portveig and in incredible surgeon called Andrew Murray. To clear my blocked arteries I had a 'stint', which is a sort of heart bypass. One is conscious for the operation and the condition of the arteries can quite clearly be seen. At one point my artery was so blocked it no longer showed clearly on the screen. Of course inhaling the puffed out cigar smoke wasn't the only cause of the problem. A high fat luxury diet also made its contribution. According to my current doctor even poor eating control contributes to memory loss and without a doubt smoking and drinking contribute to dementia and alzheimers. So young people, you will not have the excuse that you didn't know that poor diet, lack of exercise and drinking will almost certainly rob you of many years of your later life. Drugs is an even bigger issue and when I wrote 'The Devil Pays the Piper' I carried out a lot of research into the drug called TIK. If you even try this drug once you will almost certainly be addicted. The drug will immediately begin the process of damaging your brain, heart, lungs etc. It is a horribly destructive drug. It is very, very difficult to get off this drug, but many people do. However, much damage will remain forever including memory loss and possibly dementia and alzheimers. For older people like me it is not too late to fight memory loss and dementia. Prayer and meditation do help, so we must remain cheerful and keep fighting! My own memory played a few tricks this week. The funniest was that I woke up, glanced at the clock and saw that I had overslept and my stepson would probably have missed his bus. I leapt out of bed and put one trouser log on as I hurried down the hall to wake up Charlie. As I hobbled along shouting I struggled to get the second leg in and because everything became such a tangle I collapsed back at the bedroom door calling for Julian to find Charlie who wasn't in his bed room. I was baffled why she roared with laughter and said; "Darling you took him an hour ago and then came back to bed!" Yes, it was funny, very funny, but what was worrying was that I didn't remember taking the boy to school! Keep taking the tablets. David Barnato. Paarl. South Africa.