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