Over 40 million people worldwide suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, and this number is expected to rise dramatically in the coming years. Yet, no real progress has been made in the fight against this disease since it was classified more than 100 years ago.
In the TED video titled Alzheimer’s Is Not Normal Aging — And We Can Cure It, scientist Samuel Cohen shares a new breakthrough in Alzheimer’s research from his laboratory, along with a message of hope. Cohen states, “Alzheimer’s is a disease, and we can cure it.”
The Origins of Alzheimer’s Disease
In 1901, a woman named Auguste was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Frankfurt, Germany. She suffered from hallucinations and could not remember basic details of her life. Her doctor at the time was Alois Alzheimer. However, he did not know how to help her, other than caring for her until she passed away in 1906.
After her death, he performed an autopsy and discovered strange, disordered plaques in Auguste’s brain—something he had never seen before. And now, there’s an even heavier truth: if Auguste were alive today, we still wouldn’t be able to help her any more than Dr. Alois Alzheimer did 114 years ago.
Dr. Alois Alzheimer was the first to diagnose what we now call Alzheimer’s disease, and Auguste Deter was the first patient to be diagnosed with this condition. Since 1901, medicine has advanced tremendously. We’ve discovered antibiotics, vaccines for infectious diseases, cancer treatments, HIV medications, heart disease treatments, and much more. However, we still haven’t found a necessary treatment to cure Alzheimer’s disease.
The Increasing Number of Alzheimer’s Patients and Insufficient Research Investment
Alzheimer’s currently affects 40 million people worldwide. It is projected that by 2050, this number will rise to 150 million—possibly including us. If you live to be 85 or older, your chance of developing Alzheimer’s is nearly one in two.
In other words, you will either experience your golden years with Alzheimer’s or spend them caring for a loved one with the disease. In the U.S. alone, the cost of caring for Alzheimer’s patients is $200 billion each year, and one in every five dollars from healthcare benefits goes toward Alzheimer’s. It is the most costly disease today, and this figure is expected to increase fivefold by 2050 as the baby boomer generation ages.
You may be surprised to learn that Alzheimer’s is one of the greatest and most socially challenging diseases of our generation, yet we have done very little to address it. Today, Alzheimer’s is one of the top 10 leading causes of death worldwide, and it is the only disease that we cannot prevent, cure, or slow down.
We understand less about Alzheimer’s than we do about other diseases because we have not invested enough time and money in research. Each year, the U.S. government spends 10 times more on cancer research than on Alzheimer’s, even though Alzheimer’s causes greater losses and results in a similar number of deaths as cancer.
This lack of resources stems from a fundamental reason: lack of awareness. Here’s something that few people know but many need to: Alzheimer’s is a disease, and we can still cure it. For 114 years, people, including scientists, have confused Alzheimer’s with the natural aging process. We think memory loss is a normal part of aging. However, we need to compare a healthy elderly brain with that of an Alzheimer’s patient to see the severe damage caused by the disease.
Along with severe memory loss and other neurological impairments, the brain damage caused by Alzheimer’s significantly reduces lifespan and always results in serious consequences. Remember, Dr. Alzheimer discovered the strange plaques in Auguste’s brain nearly a century ago. Nearly a century later, we still don’t know much about this disease.
Currently, we know that these plaques are the result of protein molecules. Imagine a protein molecule like a piece of paper that is folded into a complex origami shape. As the paper folds, certain points stick together. But sometimes, mistakes happen, and those points don’t fold correctly, causing protein molecules to stick together, forming clusters and strange plaques.
Remarkable Research Results on How to Cure Alzheimer’s
We have been researching at the University of Cambridge for the past 10 years, trying to understand how this “malfunction” occurs. Finding the specific step to stop this malfunction is complex—it’s like defusing a bomb. If we cut the wrong wire, it could explode. We need to find the right wire to cut and then create a targeted treatment. Currently, we are collaborating with experts from multiple fields—medicine, biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, and mathematics—to find the key step in this process, and we are testing a new drug that could potentially stop this disease.
I’d like to share some recent results from our research. Until now, only scientists in the lab have seen these results. Watch the video showing what happens when this new drug is tested on worms. Healthy worms can move around normally. But worms with Alzheimer’s-like conditions cannot move normally. However, if we give them the new drug early on, they return to normal health and live a typical lifespan. This is just an initial positive result, but similar studies suggest that Alzheimer’s is a disease that we can understand and cure.
After 114 years of waiting, we finally have hope for something achievable in the next 10 to 20 years. To realize this hope and defeat the disease, we need help from you. The issue is not with scientists like me but with you. We need you to raise awareness that Alzheimer’s is a disease, and if we work together, we can defeat it.
In the case of other diseases, patients and their families have invested money in research and pressured the government, pharmaceutical industry, scientists, and leaders. This is crucial to improving HIV treatment in the late 1980s, and today, the fight against cancer follows a similar path. However, Alzheimer’s patients often cannot speak for themselves, and their families—those anonymous caregivers—don’t have the strength to advocate for change.
Therefore, this really depends on you. Alzheimer’s is mostly not a hereditary disease, and anyone can get it. Right now, there are 40 million people with Alzheimer’s like Auguste, who cannot make the change for themselves. Help speak up for them and demand treatment. Thank you!