Overall Review of HBO's The Alzheimer's Project

                        DVD can be ordered HERE

Alzheimer’s Disease is the second most feared disease in America after cancer. 5 million Americans have AD currently. With the Baby Boomer generation approaching retirement, AD will have a tremendous increase of cases by the year 2011. Is there any hope for those of us who do not have AD now?

From 1906, when Dr. Alois Alzheimer published his findings about AD, there has been practically no mention of it for decades since, until the last 25 years and the most significant discoveries have occurred in the last few years.

Plaques and Tangles are the trouble causers. Plaques are deposits of a protein (Amyloid) that build up between the nerve cells causing disruption of information. Tangles are twisted clumps of a another protein (Tau) that causes the nerve cells to shrink and die. This process occurs 10 to even 15 years before symptoms may show.

In 2004, a major scientific breakthrough method of seeing these plaques, using a radioactive tracer called Pittsburgh Compound B (PIB) which is captured by taking an image of the brain. This noninvasive method was created right here is Pittsburgh by William Klunk, MD, PhD and Chester Mathis, Phd of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. This method is especially helpful in monitoring families with a history of Early onset AD, where some family members show AD symptoms when they are 30 to 40 years of age. This discovery changed the way AD is researched forever.

Until this test, it was really impossible to know the difference between Alzheimer's symptoms or normal brain cell deterioration due to aging. If you think of the times that you just are doing and thinking of so much at once that you forget to do something, to having times of what we call deja vu, that feeling that you have done something or have been somewhere before, which was most likely forgetting something you just did or thought of a few seconds ago, as all normal occurrences in our brains. How do you know when these things are happening because of plaque and tangles building up and beginning into Alzheimer’s? This is a very hard disease to prevent or find drugs to help prevent or cure it. The PIB (Pittsburgh Compound B) brain scan, now gives doctors a way to know that difference, very early before much damage is done. So when Alzheimer’s is present in your family, you should ask your doctor about when and if you should be checked for presence of excess Amyloid in your brain.

One fact is very clear in the presentation of The Alzheimer’s Project and that is how thankful we all need to be not only for the brilliant scientists, but the families of brave people who are participating in clinical trials that are enabling research to make these tremendous strides in new medical discoveries.

This film also shows how it has been found that in some cases, persons can be found to have the plaques in their brain, after death and yet showed no symptoms of AD before death. One factor that seems apparent in a person who does not become affected with AD symptoms, is that being more involved with many social networks and feeling comfortable with interacting with many groups of people seems to diminish symptoms. This difference between two different people with similar amounts of plaques in the brain, shows that the personality traits that a person has that makes them less stressed and more happy and someone who interacts with many people will actually stave off how the brain diminishes in spite of the plaques in the brain. The brain actually finds a way to work around the plaque effects.

The overall theme of what is known about Alzheimer’s Disease is that we now have ways to discover when someone has the potential to develop AD. This and further research will work toward discovering new drugs to prevent and possibly cure AD. The other major factor is that as in everything we know about preventing health issues involves two main things - diet and exercise. If we settle into a more sedimentary lifestyle as we age, we will succumb to many issues of aging and earlier disease and death. If we eat a better diet and exercise, we will live longer and healthier. There is no way around this simple fact. There is one more factor in staying healthy and that is an overall feeling of happiness. People who are happier are less stressful will also lead healthy and longer productive lives.

So, the bottom line I leave you with is...eat healthier, exercise daily and smile! It seems like a simplistic way of stating an overall answer to this whole idea of living longer, but it is indeed more than that. It is about your lifestyle and the fact that man will forever strive to find ways to allow us to live longer, healthier lives through medicine. All of these facts together will give us the best chance of not only living longer, but living a life of quality as well.

In the last few minutes of Part 2 of the Momentum in Science, the best news is of how far new drugs have come that are in clinical trials right now. The most promising being an anti-body produced in the lab that attaches to the amyloid protein and stops plaque growth or even clears it. Patients in clinical trials before and after scans of plaque in the brain is reduced to nearly being clear of plaque. Scientists feel strongly that there will be drugs available to stop Alzheimer’s and perhaps even eradicate it from existence in the very near future.

HOPE is clearly the word of our times, in so many ways.

I will continue to research and post updates on future findings in the area of Alzheimer’s research.