Did the World Just Gain Hundreds of Millions of Alzheimer's Patients? A new definition of Alzheimer's includes people without symptoms. Experts are fiercely divided over whether that makes sense--and whether the new drugs really help. Many have heralded a golden age of Alzheimer's research, excited by the promise of new amyloid-targeting antibodies. Yet a large meta-study of such antibodies concluded that they probably result in "little to no difference" in the decline of memory and of cognitive ability. This July, some ten thousand people descended on London for the Alzheimer's Association International Conference. Another three thousand of us joined virtually. I'm an anthropologist, accustomed to conferences where croissants at coffee breaks count as a luxury. This one opened with six trumpeters dressed as Buckingham Palace guards, followed by dancers who discoed, vogued, and high-kicked through the history of British pop. After the first day's sessions, participants dispersed to parties; at one, singers in sequins belted out covers while someone played an illuminated, transparent violin. One night, the London Eye was lit purple to honor the people in attendance. The mood matched the spectacle. Joanne Pike, the Alzheimer's Association's president and C.E.O., announced that recent advances had brought the campaign against the disease to a "pivotal moment." Maria Carrillo, its chief science officer, hailed a groundswell of progress. That optimism followed decades of disappointment. Between 1974 and 2020, the U.S. government spent roughly twenty billion dollars on Alzheimer's research without seeing the approval of a single treatment designed to act on the disease's underlying biology, let alone stop or reverse its course. Today, Alzheimer's afflicts roughly one in nine Americans over sixty-five and, along with related dementias, has been estimated to cost the economy about three-quarters of a trillion dollars a year. In surveys, it ranks with cancer as the disease people fear most. It typically starts by robbing patients of recent memories--conversations they just had, where they put important objects--before corroding the basic functions of adult independence, from paying bills to managing medications. Eventually, it leaves patients unable to speak, move, swallow, or recognize close relatives.

Davina McCall says memory loss after brain surgery felt like'advanced Alzheimer's' TV presenter Davina McCall has said she experienced symptoms similar to advanced Alzheimer's following brain surgery. Speaking on Paloma Faith's podcast Mad, Sad and Bad, the 58-year-old described suffering from memory loss while recovering from an operation to remove a benign brain tumour in 2024. After I'd had my brain tumour taken out, I had advanced Alzheimer's, so I couldn't remember anything, the former Big Brother host told singer and Celebrity Traitors star Faith. When I came out of the operation, I didn't know I'd had an operation, she recalled. One regular member of staff would ask McCall every day if she could remember their name.

Follow this author to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. Follow Go to your personalized feed WHY FOLLOW? Smart Alerts: Get notified about major news as it happens. Only one in five women know that they're more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease than men, according to a recent survey. Maria Shriver wants that number to climb--and for women to start thinking about their brains decades before symptoms show up.

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This actor was told he had Alzheimer's, now he's performing a one-man show Image caption, Peter Marinker, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease two years ago, began dress rehearsals for the Beckett play Krapp's Last Tape in June For four days running, Peter Marinker had arrived at rehearsals that were not even taking place. Dementia had muddled the dates in his mind. Yet he is now preparing to do something most actors would find daunting even with perfect recall: performing a much-loved Samuel Beckett play alone on a London stage. Marinker, 85, is best known for his voice work: from radio plays and video games to big-budget films like Labyrinth and Paddington in Peru. On camera he was the adviser to the US president in Love Actually and one of the airline passengers in the drama United 93.

Follow this author to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. Follow Go to your personalized feed WHY FOLLOW? Smart Alerts: Get notified about major news as it happens. It seems odd that your body's internal age may differ from your chronological one. But Tony Wyss-Coray, a Swiss professor of neurology and director of the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience at Stanford University, has pioneered ways to measure a person's "biological age," which scientists say more accurately reflects how a body is aging than does chronological age.

Researchers found that a metabolite produced by gut bacteria can weaken the barrier that protects the brain and promote changes associated with the cognitive disease. For years, scientists have known that the gut microbiome of people with Alzheimer's differs from that of healthy people. What remains unclear is whether these differences are a consequence of the disease, contribute to it, or simply accompany it. It is possible that part of the puzzle lies not in the gut bacteria themselves but in the molecules they produce, which end up circulating throughout the body. A team of scientists believes it has found one such molecule.

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The lab will beam back data to train AI models to predict how proteins behind age-related diseases like Alzheimer's and certain cancers behave. Space is becoming the next frontier in longevity research. A British startup just launched self-run chemical experiments into orbit, in the hopes zero-gravity data might shine a light on a group of disease-causing proteins too difficult to study on Earth. But first they need to check their autonomous laboratory will work in space. Mass Balance's grapefruit-sized apparatus containing chemicals, sensors and control elements to keep the chemicals functioning launched on a SpaceX transporter on Tuesday morning.