What it’s Like to Take an Alzheimer’s Test
Update: 2024-11-15
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In this intimate finale of a two-part special, Dr. Sanjay Gupta decides to find out his own risk of Alzheimer’s disease. As he confronts his own genetic markers and lifestyle factors, Sanjay breaks down the science behind Alzheimer’s risk and explores what steps might slow down the disease.
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Transcript
00:00:00
[MUSIC PLAYING]
00:00:03
Last week, I introduced you to patients around the country who symbolized hope in the fight against Alzheimer's disease.
00:00:09
They showed us a series of lifestyle changes that were able to slow, and in some cases even reversed the course of their disease.
00:00:17
I mean, how many people five years did dementia get to go outside and go for a walk by themselves every day?
00:00:24
Not very many.
00:00:26
I have to tell you that spending time with these patients for my documentary really started to make me think about my own brain, because I also have a family history of Alzheimer's disease.
00:00:36
So admittedly, with a little bit of trepidation, I decided to learn about my own risk.
00:00:42
It was one of the most personal and revealing experiences I have ever gone through.
00:00:46
Listen to what I found.
00:00:48
In the last Alzheimer's patient, part two.
00:00:52
[MUSIC PLAYING]
00:00:55
One, two, three, four, one, one.
00:01:02
This is 71-year-old Mike Carver.
00:01:05
Today, he's at his rock steady boxing class in Berkeley, California.
00:01:10
While Mike has no known family history of Alzheimer's, he was a carrier of both copies of the ApoE4 gene.
00:01:19
That's the genotype that can increase a person's risk at least 10 fold.
00:01:24
And in 2017, he was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's.
00:01:28
All right, time.
00:01:31
Mike, they tell you that this is the diagnosis.
00:01:34
And then do they tell you at all what to do about it?
00:01:38
Not really.
00:01:39
Just kind of go home and start putting things away.
00:01:45
Really?
00:01:46
Yeah.
00:01:47
That must have been really hard.
00:01:48
If there's something you want to do, do it in the next couple of years, because we don't know how fast this will move.
00:01:56
Early onset can be very, very fast decline for some people.
00:02:03
Desperate for answers, Mike's wife went to the web.
00:02:07
She searched for support groups, studies to join, anything to help slow this down.
00:02:12
Welcome everybody.
00:02:13
Eventually, they found Dr.
00:02:15
Dean Ornish and his clinical trial.
00:02:17
That's the same one she, she's Zerbe, has been a part of.
00:02:20
It was probably only maybe three or four months into the study that I realized Mike wasn't asking repetitive questions the way he had been.
00:02:33
And those stopped.
00:02:35
And those have kind of stayed away.
00:02:37
You're a meat and potatoes kind of guy.
00:02:44
Yeah.
00:02:45
They're asking you to do a vegan diet.
00:02:48
Yep.
00:02:49
I'm from Kansas City.
00:02:50
There's meat.
00:02:52
There.
00:02:54
How hard was that for you?
00:02:56
It was pretty difficult to start.
00:02:59
But then I just had to turn around and say, this is the best I can do to stay alive.
00:03:10
And I want to live with my wife as long as I can.
00:03:16
And that they had joined to stretch the spine forward.
00:03:20
Dr.
00:03:20
Ornish reports that after 40 weeks, Mike's cognitive tests improved.
00:03:25
Our neurologist said, honestly, he has never had a patient actually show an improvement on a score.
00:03:34
He was pretty amazed about that.
00:03:36
And actually it was kind of shocking.
00:03:38
That was kind of when he was like it is best.
00:03:41
They were in the Ornish study during COVID.
00:03:44
And they had to move the four-hour, three-time-a-week group sessions to zoom.
00:03:48
Hey!
00:03:50
They enjoyed their support groups so much that they still meet weekly all these years later.
00:03:54
Throughout the study, they both lost weight.
00:04:01
They improved their cholesterol numbers and their resting heart rate.
00:04:05
It's been seven years now since the diagnosis of Alzheimer's.
00:04:08
Oh, great grades.
00:04:11
And five, since they took on the lifestyle changes.
00:04:15
No new medications, no new therapies, just to change in their habits.
00:04:20
I know that there's going to be other bad things happen down the road.
00:04:27
And I'm working hard to make that longer.
00:04:35
The carvers confess that if they knew then what they know now, they would have changed their lifestyle much earlier.
00:04:41
If we can find ways to educate people to help them understand what they're putting inside their bodies, how they're responding to life.
00:04:53
There's hope.
00:04:54
There's something we can do for our kids, for our grandkids, to make a difference.
00:05:01
And what if that hope could be brought to the masses?
00:05:05
What have you learned from the pointer study?
00:05:08
Eat vegetables and fruit.
00:05:10
2,000 patients across five American cities.
00:05:13
Our study is a two-year-long intervention, and in older adults, the goal of the study is to prevent cognitive decline.
00:05:20
An Alzheimer's prevention study without any drugs designed to work for as many Americans as possible.
00:05:27
Black, African-American, Hispanic, Native American.
00:05:31
These individuals are at higher risk for cognitive decline in dementia.
00:05:37
We wanted to make sure that they were adequately represented in our study.
00:05:41
Overall, Alzheimer's research often gets criticized for its lack of diversity in study participants.
00:05:47
In many of the studies that have been done over the years, there's no African-American representation.
00:05:55
I would say to myself, how can the day to be correct for a person like me, if they're not people like me, just end the study?
00:06:03
If you participated in pointer and are considered an alum, can you please raise your hand?
00:06:09
So in U.S.
00:06:09
pointer, you had to be sedentary, not a regular excerciser.
00:06:12
You had to not already be eating healthy diet.
00:06:15
Well, before I started a pointer study, that's a fast food to holly.
00:06:20
I would say I was allergic to exercise.
00:06:22
It causes me to sweat.
00:06:24
It causes me to turn red, and it causes me to have shortness of breath.
00:06:28
You had to have some mild cardiovascular disease, so mild hypertension, mild high cholesterol, mild high blood sugar.
00:06:39
But also we're looking for people who have memory problems in their family.
00:06:44
My father was diagnosed.
00:06:47
My dad couldn't function.
00:06:48
Sometimes he would just go into rages.
00:06:52
My favorite aunt has dementia today.
00:06:55
My mom died that first year of not knowing anything, of taking the Christmas gifts to her that year, and she couldn't even remember how to open them.
00:07:05
My maternal grandmother, back in the '50s, they weren't saying all times with this what it was.
00:07:10
Her memory was gone.
00:07:12
For years, drug was the focus always to treat the disease.
00:07:16
Lifestyle exercise, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:07:19
It's beneficial.
00:07:20
Everybody should be doing it.
00:07:21
But we're not going to study it as a prevention strategy.
00:07:24
That's not the case anymore.
00:07:26
Now, lifestyle risk modification has a place at the table.
00:07:30
She has a family history, you said?
00:07:32
Yes.
00:07:32
That place at the table was earned in large part by this world-renowned scientist, Dr.
00:07:38
Mia Kivapelto, who pioneered the large-scale clinical lifestyle trial.
00:07:42
Does the medical community believe that lifestyle changes alone can slow or even halt dementia?
00:07:50
40% of dementia is linked to multiple risk factors.
00:07:55
Now, we have at least this 40% chance of doing something.
00:07:59
She published her landmark finger research from Finland in 2013, and it completely changed the field.
00:08:06
The finger study was revolutionizing.
00:08:09
Reducing risk over two years could actually help people preserve their cognition.
00:08:17
That work is the backbone of Dr.
00:08:18
Ornish's approach, as well as the US pointer study.
00:08:22
And the intervention is being tested and adapted to more than 60 countries in the worldwide fingers network.
00:08:29
We had five fingers, easy to remember.
00:08:32
Healthy phallus diet, very important for the brain health, physical activity, one of the most powerful medicines we have for the brain health.
00:08:41
Third one is the cognitive activity.
00:08:44
We need to use our brains.
00:08:46
We had the concept brain plasticity.
00:08:48
Fourth finger is the social activity and even relaxation.
00:08:53
And the fifth one is taking care of all vascular metabolic risk factors, like blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, and obesity.
00:09:04
The finger study was conducted in Finland.
00:09:07
The fins are very different than Americans.
00:09:11
Could we deploy a risk reduction strategy and actually see similar results in the United States with a diverse population?
00:09:20
What would you say about dropping all fried foods?
00:09:24
I would say, yes, drop all fried foods.
00:09:27
All the participants we spoke to had seen positive results so far.
00:09:32
We can make these changes together.
00:09:34
Significant weight loss.
00:09:36
Improve numbers for cholesterol, A1C, and blood pressure.
00:09:40
And they all say they're feeling better and they're thinking more clearly.
00:09:44
I hope you're feeling better.
00:09:46
Full study results are expected by summer 2025.
00:09:50
Boca Raton, Florida.
00:10:00
A place where about one in four residents is age 65 or older.
00:10:05
No surprise then that this region of South Florida also happens to have the highest percentage of people living with Alzheimer's.
00:10:14
I've come to figure out whether I'm at risk for later dimension life.
00:10:19
This is what you do.
00:10:20
This is what I do, yeah.
00:10:22
Dr.
00:10:22
Richard Isaacson is a world-renowned neurologist and Alzheimer's expert.
00:10:27
Looks like a lot of blood.
00:10:28
It's not that much.
00:10:30
It looks like a lot.
00:10:32
You're not going to find many places like this around the country.
00:10:36
A place that practices preventative neurology, highly personalized and most importantly for me, predictive.
00:10:45
So Holly here is graciously ducking me with a needle who's now drawing my blood for all sorts of different things.
00:10:51
For basic cardiac metabolic sort of risk factors.
00:10:55
But also many of these purple tubes here is part of a research study to see what some of these biomarkers for Alzheimer's are for me and what they might mean.
00:11:06
Try to concentrate as you look at them now.
00:11:09
That's correct.
00:11:12
That wasn't quite right.
00:11:13
There is a lengthy cognitive test.
00:11:16
Place your heels on.
00:11:17
We're looking at your body composition.
00:11:19
Your muscle mass, your body fat.
00:11:21
Where the body fat is.
00:11:22
Starting your in-body test.
00:11:24
And an exhaustive intake of my medical, personal and family history.
00:11:28
My grandmother has mom and my dad both had diabetes.
00:11:33
Now my test results are going to take a couple of weeks to come back.
00:11:37
But while I was there with Dr.
00:11:39
Isaacson, he did tell me about this patient right around my same age.
00:11:45
Simon Nichols.
00:11:46
Now to be clear, he was never diagnosed with Alzheimer's.
00:11:50
But he does carry the strongest known genetic risks.
00:11:55
My mother passed away from Alzheimer's, so I was very worried.
00:11:59
I have a three-year-old son and an eight-year-old son.
00:12:02
It's really important for me as I get older to try and be there for me in the future.
00:12:07
Post-COVID, I started noticing some memory losses.
00:12:10
I mean, it could have been from a number of reasons.
00:12:13
Tell me more about that.
00:12:14
What were your experiences?
00:12:15
When I started to have this sort of memory loss, I think, oh my god, what's going on?
00:12:20
What's happening?
00:12:21
Regular exercise helps.
00:12:23
Simon had already been seeing Dr.
00:12:24
Arthur Agutston, who was famous for the South Beach diet.
00:12:28
He was seeing him for his heart health.
00:12:30
Okay, so...
00:12:32
And Dr.
00:12:33
Agutston referred him to Dr.
00:12:34
Isaacson for his Alzheimer's concerns.
00:12:37
You know, tell him for a minute during the death.
00:12:39
He came to join our study in January 27, 2023.
00:12:43
We would treat cholesterol, we would treat his sleep, we would change his nutrition, we kept checking everything out.
00:12:48
Basically, over the year, he went from positive amyloid and positive towel to negative amyloid and towel.
00:12:56
Simon had fewer towel-tail signs of Alzheimer's disease.
00:13:00
Closer to normal levels of amyloid in town in his blood, which corresponds with less amyloid in town in his brain.
00:13:08
Today, we're looking at his brain values.
00:13:11
As we reviewed Simon's studies, there was something else that Dr.
00:13:15
Isaacson's team found stunning.
00:13:18
There were six regions of his brain that were below the 25th percentile in 2022.
00:13:25
It's now 2024, and there's only three regions of his brain that are below the 25th percentile.
00:13:31
So, not only is he not lost more volume, he's actually grown.
00:13:35
This is early days, one case.
00:13:40
This guy did everything right.
00:13:42
We normalized his risk factors.
00:13:44
We improved his amyloid in town, quantifiably, verifiably.
00:13:50
His brain grew.
00:13:51
His belly size got smaller.
00:13:54
His brain got larger.
00:13:58
But here is the critical question.
00:14:03
What did these astonishing test results really mean for Simon himself and his daily life?
00:14:10
Did you notice a change in your cognition?
00:14:12
Yes.
00:14:13
I still have memory issues.
00:14:14
It might be normal, okay, because looking at my MRIs and my MRIs and my blood tests, it seems I haven't got Alzheimer's right, so hopefully I'm okay.
00:14:23
I know you're a health span guy, not necessarily a lifespan guy, but how long do you want to live?
00:14:27
So, I'm 136 years old.
00:14:31
It's a good number.
00:14:32
I love to see my son get married, have his own kids.
00:14:39
After the break, I finally get the results of my own Alzheimer's test.
00:14:45
I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy.
00:14:48
Claire Duffy was one of my engineers.
00:14:49
I cover artificial intelligence and other new technologies for a living.
00:14:54
And even I sometimes get overwhelmed trying to keep up with it all.
00:14:58
So I'm starting a new show where together we can explore how to experiment with these new tools without getting played by them.
00:15:05
It's called Terms of Service.
00:15:07
This technology is so crazy powerful.
00:15:10
Follow CNN's Terms of Service wherever you get your podcasts.
00:15:15
It's been two weeks after my own testing for Alzheimer's risk.
00:15:25
It was time for the results.
00:15:27
And I have to admit, I was kind of nervous.
00:15:31
Based on some of the findings that we have, in some ways, you're a walking modifiable risk factor for Alzheimer's disease.
00:15:39
I am a walking modifiable risk factor.
00:15:43
Ford of every 10 cases of dementia may be preventable if that person does everything right.
00:15:48
It's my belief based on all the assessments we did.
00:15:51
You are absolutely in that 4 out of 10.
00:15:54
So that's a relief.
00:15:56
My genes at least don't carry an increased risk.
00:16:00
And there is no signs of elevated plaque or tau in my blood.
00:16:04
But there are also no guarantees for me or really for anyone.
00:16:09
Weight measurement is complete.
00:16:11
Age is the number one risk factor.
00:16:13
Every year you get older, you're at higher risk of Alzheimer's disease.
00:16:16
Doctor Isaacson and his team spend hours analyzing and explaining my test results.
00:16:22
Some recommendations, obvious.
00:16:26
Go plant-based as much as possible.
00:16:28
Get exercise.
00:16:30
But I was also told more surprising things.
00:16:34
Take a brisk walk, possibly with a weighted vest.
00:16:38
Wear something called a continuous glucose monitor.
00:16:41
And you can track the fluctuations in blood sugar.
00:16:45
And pay attention to my grip strength.
00:16:49
Grip strength is a terrific, inexpensive quick screening test for cognitive decline.
00:16:56
Preventing problems down the road.
00:17:01
Yeah, I'll go the other way.
00:17:03
Well, that is healthcare instead of sick care.
00:17:07
But no question, it comes with the cost.
00:17:10
If an individual wants to seek that out, they certainly should.
00:17:13
We at the Alzheimer's Association just don't have that evidence to be able to go out to public health agencies.
00:17:18
And say, hey, this is something that works.
00:17:21
Let's do it for all.
00:17:23
It's just not for the masses yet, but that's what we want, right?
00:17:27
But Dr.
00:17:28
Isaacson and his team, they're working on fixing that as well.
00:17:31
This is the kind of cognitive test that you could do at home.
00:17:35
You don't have to come to a place like this.
00:17:38
Funded by the National Institutes of Health, they are now testing software designed to reduce the risk of getting Alzheimer's.
00:17:48
The software does a risk assessment, doesn't memory test.
00:17:52
It tells you what to do.
00:17:54
In the future, we're going to add blood biomarkers.
00:17:59
All of this, all this testing, you could do in your own home.
00:18:04
Do your own blood tests, get these own measures, and come up with a personalized plan.
00:18:09
I can't do this at scale just yet, but using software and at home testing.
00:18:13
This is the way to get people off the road to Alzheimer's disease.
00:18:17
And today, getting off that road for Alzheimer's and dementia is so much simpler than we previously thought.
00:18:27
All those little decisions we make every day.
00:18:32
To move more, to eat healthier, read that label, learn a new skill, spend time with loved ones.
00:18:45
They sound so easy, but the evidence is clear.
00:18:50
It can and it will add up to better brain health.
00:18:56
To learn more about the latest science and also practical ways you can lower your risk for Alzheimer's,
00:19:07
go to CNN.com/health for more information.
00:19:13
Up next, I'm going to answer a listener question for our segment on call.
00:19:19
Today, we hear from Jesse, who asks, "Should people who have a family history of Alzheimer's get the screening test that you were given for the documentary?
00:19:36
And if so, at what age?"
00:19:38
Jesse, this is a great question, and I am a big fan of information.
00:19:43
You know, I think for a long time people did not want to get tested because there wasn't much you could do with the information.
00:19:50
But that is changing now.
00:19:52
Between new medications and frankly great evidence around the benefit of lifestyle changes alone, there is a lot you can do.
00:20:00
So there is a blood test that looks for a protein called phosphorylated tau or p-tau.
00:20:07
That is being used to screen for Alzheimer's with pretty high accuracy even before symptoms begin to appear.
00:20:14
The test is out there, but it's not widely available for clinical use, but that's probably going to change over the next several months.
00:20:21
If the question is when should you begin to worry?
00:20:24
You need to remember, Jesse, most of us experience mental glitches occasionally.
00:20:28
Most memory problems that we think of is not dementia.
00:20:31
It's rather inattention.
00:20:33
It's not that you're forgetting something.
00:20:36
It's that you didn't take the time to remember.
00:20:38
You have to keep in mind that remembering something is an intentional act.
00:20:42
You have to want to remember it.
00:20:44
That really helps store it in your brain.
00:20:47
Dementia conditions, including Alzheimer's, impair your ability to remember yes, but also to think and make decisions that interfere with your everyday activities.
00:20:57
That is not a normal part of aging.
00:21:00
A person with Alzheimer's may more routinely forget things like the name of a close family member versus the name of an acquaintance, or they may forget the name of a familiar object like a watch,
00:21:11
or even what it's for, versus not finding the right word every now and then.
00:21:15
There's a real difference and if you're not sure, it's probably time to see your doctor.
00:21:22
Jesse, thanks so much for your question.
00:21:26
Chasing Life is a production of CNN Audio.
00:21:29
Our podcast is produced by Aaron Matheson, Jennifer Lai, Grace Walker, and Jesse Remedios.
00:21:36
Andrea Cain is our medical writer.
00:21:38
Our senior producer is Dan Bloom.
00:21:40
Amanda Sealey is our showrunner.
00:21:43
Dan DeZula is our technical director and the executive producer of CNN Audio is Steve Licktie.
00:21:49
With support from James Andrest, John DeAnora, Haley Thomas, Alex Menissari, Robert Mathers, Laney Steinhart,
00:21:59
Nicole Pesarou, and Lisa Namara.
00:22:02
Special thanks to Ben Tinker and Nadia Kanang of CNN Health and Katie Hinman.
00:22:09
