Alzheimer's Early Warning Signs

This AP News Article talks about a newly discovered possible early warning sign of the dread memory-loss disease.

Unexplained weight loss in older people might be an early signal of Alzheimer's disease, appearing several years before the memory lapses that define the illness, according to an intriguing but unproven new theory.
Study co-author Dr. David Bennett, director of the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center, says the results raise the possibility that the disease attacks brain regions involved in regulating food intake and metabolism, as well as memory, and that weight loss is an early symptom.

Wow. Interesting theory. I think Alzheimer's is the thing that everyone fears most about getting old. If man is the sum of his memories, then any loss of memory is a loss of identity as well. I go back and forth about it. I certainly don't want Alzheimer's, but my great grandmother had it. She couldn't eat or go to the bathroom by herself and died at 98. Although in her mind the only memories she had were of her childhood, when she was young and happy. In her mind her parents and beloved sister were still alive. In her mind she was picking berries in Northern Michigan, not crapping herself in a Detroit nursing home. I can't see where that was all bad.