Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vocal bomb. Here. People are living longer now than
Speaker 1: ever before. But with this triumph comes a truly unfortunate foe,
Speaker 1: Alzheimer's disease. Symptoms of the progressive brain disorder, which is
Speaker 1: the most common cause of dementia for older adults, typically
Speaker 1: start to show up around the age of sixty five,
Speaker 1: just when many people retire and plan to start enjoying
Speaker 1: their golden years. The disease is incurable and is listed
Speaker 1: as the sixth leading cause of death for older people
Speaker 1: in the United States, but the National Institutes of Health
Speaker 1: says more recent estimates indicate it should rank third, behind
Speaker 1: only cancer and heart disease, because many cases are not
Speaker 1: reported correctly. Worse, Alzheimer's is the only disease in the
Speaker 1: top ten causes of death United States for which there
Speaker 1: is neither a cure, nor means of prevention nor treatment
Speaker 1: to slow down the disease. We spoke via email with
Speaker 1: David Lusk, founder of an issue advocacy can salting company
Speaker 1: called Key Advocacy. Lusk's mother, at age sixty five, began
Speaker 1: exhibiting symptoms like short term memory loss, struggling with basic
Speaker 1: paperwork and making decisions with difficulty, but she was not
Speaker 1: diagnosed until age seventy. In two thou eight, Lusk said,
Speaker 1: by early twelve, my mother no longer believed I was
Speaker 1: her son. It was crushing to have my own mother
Speaker 1: thinks she wasn't my mother, and she even stopped saying
Speaker 1: I love you. That is the most painful thing to
Speaker 1: ever endure, never hearing your own mother saying she loves
Speaker 1: you ever again. Lusk's mother died in after following a
Speaker 1: pattern of cognitive and emotional decline that has become sadly
Speaker 1: familiar for people dealing with Alzheimer's. Lusk wonders if he
Speaker 1: will get the disease himself someday, as it tends to
Speaker 1: run in families. He said that back of your mind concern.
Speaker 1: I try to ignore it, but there's also a part
Speaker 1: of me that wonders if I'm not already walking down
Speaker 1: the dark fatal path. So many millions have and will
Speaker 1: as the numbers of people with Alzheimer's skyrockets, it's troublesome
Speaker 1: that a cure or effective treatment hasn't been ound after
Speaker 1: so many years of research. It's not for lack of effort.
Speaker 1: In fact, more than one hundred drugs have been studied
Speaker 1: in clinical trials since two thousand two, to the tune
Speaker 1: of billions of dollars in funding, but none of these
Speaker 1: have proved effective enough for patient use. So what gives?
Speaker 1: Why is it so hard to find treatment for Alzheimer's.
Speaker 1: We also spoke with Rebecca edelbay Or, PhD, Director of
Speaker 1: Scientific Engagement for the Alzheimer's Association. She said, some of
Speaker 1: the difficulty has been in being able to identify really
Speaker 1: what the initiation of the disease is in people. We've
Speaker 1: learned that some of the changes are occurring maybe ten
Speaker 1: to twenty years before they're experiencing the cognitive difficulty. That's
Speaker 1: the crux. We need to understand what's happening in the
Speaker 1: brain before you're experiencing symptoms. We're really trying to understand
Speaker 1: the biology underpinnings of the disease. This is where researchers
Speaker 1: are most focused at the moment. Part of the problem
Speaker 1: is figuring out which people to study ten years before
Speaker 1: they're showing any signs of dementia. Edelmayer said, we're trying
Speaker 1: to i d people believed to be at risk, and
Speaker 1: maybe the candidates have a primary relative that had full
Speaker 1: blown Alzheimer's. Maybe they have risk factors poor cardiovascular health,
Speaker 1: or difficulties with their sleep. All of these things put
Speaker 1: you at risk for being someone to develop Alzheimer's. Of course,
Speaker 1: not everyone with poor heart health gets Alzheimer's, and al
Speaker 1: Mayor notes that one of the ways to try to
Speaker 1: find people at risk is through biomarkers, which are measurable
Speaker 1: substances that show up in a living thing when a
Speaker 1: particular event is occurring. Checking people who aren't yet symptomatic
Speaker 1: over a period of years and comparing them against people
Speaker 1: with Alzheimer's and varying stages can shine light on which
Speaker 1: biomarkers to look out for. Some potential biomarkers which could
Speaker 1: eventually help to pinpoint those at risk of Alzheimer's include
Speaker 1: blood and urine tests, genetic profiles, brain imaging, and proteins
Speaker 1: in cerebral spinal fluid. Identifying some of these biomarkers might
Speaker 1: even lead to the development of preventative measures. New evidence
Speaker 1: from one of the largest clinical trials of its kind
Speaker 1: revealed in July the people who aggressively lower their stolic
Speaker 1: blood pressure to below one twenty may reduce risk of
Speaker 1: cognitive impairment. Edel Mayer said, we can modify some of
Speaker 1: our risk factors by very significantly controlling cardiovascular health. What's
Speaker 1: good for your heart is going to be good for
Speaker 1: your brain. Other modifiable risk factors could be related to diet, exercise,
Speaker 1: drugs that harm the brain, and even sleep quality, but
Speaker 1: those require more study before definitive recommendations can be made.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, continuing efforts are underway to find a treatment.
Speaker 1: Edel Mayer says that it's crucial to figure out how
Speaker 1: to quote remove those built up proteins in the brain
Speaker 1: that we believe are inhibiting neuronal communication in the brain.
Speaker 1: An additional area of study focuses on better managing the
Speaker 1: behavioral systems of Alzheimer's that can be so disruptive in
Speaker 1: day to day life, like sleep problems, agitation, or even
Speaker 1: bouts of aggression. Better management of these symptoms would mean
Speaker 1: a better quality of life for patients and their families.
Speaker 1: To improve detection, the Alzheimer's Association is planning to release
Speaker 1: twenty recommendations to help doctors make timely diagnoses and establish
Speaker 1: best practice protocols for how Alzheimer's should be handled. These
Speaker 1: guidelines are expected to be published in late For Lusk's part,
Speaker 1: he says that if a treatment or cure for this
Speaker 1: disease was discovered, he'd feel amazingly relieved to not have
Speaker 1: to dread a diagnosis of Alzheimer's, he said, to no
Speaker 1: longer have to worry about that and have that concern.
Speaker 1: That would be a huge weight lifted off my shoulders.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Aliya Hoyt and produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. If you enjoy our show and want to
Speaker 1: support us directly, visit our online shop at te public
Speaker 1: dot com slash brain stuff, and of course, for more
Speaker 1: on this and lots of other hopeful topics, visit our
Speaker 1: home planet, how stuff works dot com