The coming neurological epidemic Gregory Petsko

unless we do something to prevent it

over the next 40 years we’re facing an

epidemic of neurologic diseases on a

global scale a cheery thought– on this

map every country that’s colored blue

has more than 20% of its population over

the age of 65 this is the world we live

in and this is the world your children

will live in for 12,000 years the

distribution of ages in the human

population has looked like a pyramid

with the oldest on top it’s already

flattening out by 2050 it’s going to be

a column and we’ll start to invert this

is why it’s happening the average

lifespan is more than doubled since 1840

and it’s increasing currently at the

rate of about 5 hours every day and this

is why that’s not entirely a good thing

because over the age of 65 your risk of

getting Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s

disease will increase exponentially by

2050 there’ll be about 32 million people

in the United States over the age of 80

and unless we do something about it half

of them will have Alzheimer’s disease

and 3 million more will have Parkinson’s

disease right now those and other

neurologic diseases for which we have no

cure or prevention cost about a third of

a trillion dollars a year it’ll be well

over a trillion dollars by 2050

Alzheimer’s disease starts when a

protein that should be folded up

properly mis folds into a kind of

demented origami so one approach we’re

taking is to try to design drugs that

function like molecular scotch tape to

hold the protein into its proper shape

that would keep it from forming the

tangles that seem to kill large sections

of the brain when they do interestingly

enough other neurologic diseases which

affect very different parts of the brain

also show tangles of MIS folded protein

which suggests that the approach might

be a general one and might be used to

cure many neurologic diseases not just

Alzheimer’s disease there’s also a

fascinating connection to cancer here

because people with neurologic diseases

have a very low in

cents of most cancers and this is a

connection that most people aren’t

pursuing right now but which were

fascinated by most of the important that

all of the creative work in this area is

being funded by private philanthropies

and there’s tremendous scope for

additional private help here because the

government has dropped the ball on much

of this I’m afraid in the meantime while

we’re waiting for all these things to

happen here’s what you can do for

yourself if you want to lower your risk

of Parkinson’s disease caffeine is

protective to some extent nobody knows

why head injuries are bad for you they

lead to Parkinson’s disease and the

avian flu is also not a good idea as far

as protecting yourself against

Alzheimer’s disease well it turns out

that fish oil has the effect of reducing

your risk for Alzheimer’s disease you

should also keep your blood pressure

down because chronic high blood pressure

is the biggest single risk factor for

Alzheimer’s disease it’s also the

biggest risk factor for glaucoma which

is just Alzheimer’s disease of the eye

and of course when it comes to cognitive

effects use it or lose it applies so you

want to stay mentally stimulated but hey

you’re listening to me so you’ve got

that covered and one final thing which

people like me luck okay because the

clock is ticking for all of us thank