Over 7 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease
CHARLOTTE () — For the first time, the number of people with Alzheimer's disease in America is now more than 7 million, and the prevalence of the disease is rising in the Carolinas. Katherine Lambert, CEO of the Alzheimer's Association Western Carolina Chapter, joins Queen City News Now to discuss newly released data and what it means for diagnosis, prevention and the cost of care.
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Yahoo
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Broome County educating seniors and caregivers on Alzheimer's
BROOME COUNTY, N.Y. (WIVT/WBGH) – Older adults can join Broome County in learning more about Alzheimer's. The Broome County Office for Aging and the Alzheimer's Association are hosting a presentation on 'Exploring Care and Support Services' at the Johnson City Senior Center on June 17 from 1 to 2 p.m. This is one part of the Alzheimer's Association's 'Empowered Caregiver Series.' The presentation will walk caregivers through different types of respite, both long-term and residential, how to plan for these changes, and end-of-life care options. Additional parts of the series will be held in upcoming months. You do not have to attend allparts of the series. To register for the event, call the Office for Aging at (607) 778-2411 and ask to speak with Megan. Hanagan's Heroes monument to be relocated to Southside Veterans Park Broome County educating seniors and caregivers on Alzheimer's Binghamton man sentenced for threatening victim from jail Riley supporting loan forgiveness for volunteer first responders P. East Trading Corp recalls Salted Smoked Split Herring Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Atlantic
10 hours ago
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Get Ready to Hear a Lot More About Your Mitochondria
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s warning about mitochondria slipped in between the anti-vaccine junk science and the excoriation of pharmaceutical drugs as 'the No. 3 killer in our country.' He was speaking in 2023 to Joe Rogan, elaborating on the dangers of Wi-Fi—which no high-quality scientific evidence has shown to harm anyone's health—and arguing that it causes disease by somehow opening the blood-brain barrier, and by degrading victims' mitochondria. The mention of mitochondria—the tiny structures that generate energy within our cells—was brief. Two years later, mitochondrial health is poised to become a pillar of the MAHA movement, already showing up in marketing for supplements and on podcasts across the 'manosphere.' Casey Means, President Donald Trump's newest nominee for surgeon general, has singled out the organelle as the main casualty of the modern American health crisis. According to Means (who has an M.D. but no active medical license), most of America's chronic ailments can be traced to mitochondrial dysfunction. Should she be confirmed to the post of surgeon general, the American public can expect to hear a lot more about mitochondria. Among scientists, interest and investment in mitochondria have risen notably in the past five years, Kay Macleod, a University of Chicago researcher who studies mitochondria's role in cancer, told me. Mitochondria, after all, perform a variety of crucial functions in the human body. Beyond powering cells, they can affect gene expression, help certain enzymes function, and modulate cell death, Macleod said. When mitochondria are defective, people do indeed suffer. Vamsi Mootha, a mitochondrial biologist based at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute, told me that rare genetic defects (appearing in about one in 4,300 people) can cause the organelles to malfunction, leading to muscle weakness, heart abnormalities, cognitive disability, and liver and kidney problems. Evidence also suggests that defects in mitochondria directly contribute to symptoms of Parkinson's disease, and could be both a cause and an effect of type 2 diabetes. Other conditions' links to mitochondria are blurrier. Researchers see aberrant mitochondria in postmortem biopsies of patients with illnesses such as Alzheimer's, cancer, and fatty-liver disease, Mootha said; whether those damaged mitochondria cause or result from such conditions is not yet clear. But according to Good Energy, the book Means published last year with a top MAHA adviser—her brother, Calley—mitochondrial dysfunction is a veritable plague upon the United States, responsible for both serious illness and everyday malaise. In their view, modern Western diets and lifestyles wreck countless Americans' metabolic health: Every time you drink unfiltered water or a soda, or feel the stress of mounting phone notifications, you hurt your mitochondria, they say, triggering an immune response that in turn triggers inflammation. (Damaged mitochondria really can cause inflammation, Macleod said.) This chain of events, the Meanses claim, can be blamed for virtually every common chronic health condition: migraines, depression, infertility, heart disease, obesity, cancer, and more. (Casey Means did not respond to requests for comment; reached by email, Calley did not respond to my questions about mitochondria, but noted, 'There is significant scientific evidence that healthy food, exercise and sleep have a significant impact on reversing chronic disease.') Good Energy follows a typical wellness playbook: using a mixture of valid and dubious research to pin a slew of common health problems on one overlooked element of health—and advertising a cure. Among the culprits for our mitochondrial ravaging, according to the Meanses, are poor sleep, medications, ultraprocessed foods, seed oils, too many calories, and too few vitamins, as well as chronically staying in comfortable ambient temperatures. The Means siblings therefore recommend eschewing refined sugar in favor of leafy greens, avoiding nicotine and alcohol, frequenting saunas and cold plunges, getting seven to eight hours of uninterrupted sleep a night, and cleansing your life of environmental toxins. Some studies indeed suggest that mitochondrial function is linked with sleep and temperature, but they've all been conducted on cell cultures, organoids, or mice. According to Macleod, evidence suggests that diet, too, is likely important. But only one lifestyle intervention— exercise —has been definitively shown to improve mitochondrial health in humans. The Meanses are riding a wave of interest in mitochondrial health in the wellness world. Earlier this year, the longevity influencer Bryan Johnson and the ivermectin enthusiast Mel Gibson both endorsed the dye methylene blue for its power to improve mitochondrial respiration; Kennedy was filmed slipping something that looks a lot like methylene blue into his drink. (Kennedy did not respond to a request for comment; the FDA has approved methylene blue, but only as a treatment for the blood disease methemoglobinemia.) AG1, formerly known as Athletic Greens, formulates its drinkable vitamins for mitochondrial health. Even one laser-light skin treatment promises to 'recharge failing mitochondria.' The enzyme CoQ10 is popular right now as a supplement for mitochondrial function, as is NAD, a molecule involved in mitochondria's production of energy. NAD IV drips are especially beloved by celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Kendall Jenner, and the Biebers. These supplements are generally thought to be safe, and some preliminary research shows that NAD supplementation could help patients with Parkinson's or other neurodegenerative diseases, and that CoQ10 could benefit people with mitochondrial disorders. Patients whose symptoms are clearly caused or made worse by deficiencies in a specific vitamin, such as thiamine, can benefit from supplementing those vitamins, Mootha said. But little research explores how these supplements might affect healthy adults. In Good Energy, as well as on her website and in podcast appearances, Casey Means promotes a number of supplements for mitochondrial health. She also recommends that people wear continuous glucose monitors—available from her company, Levels Health, for $184 a month—to help prevent overwhelming their mitochondria with too much glucose. (According to Macleod, glucose levels are only 'a very indirect measure' of mitochondrial activity.) As with so many problems that wellness influencers harp on, the supposed solution to this one involves buying products from those exact same people. At best, all of this attention to mitochondria could lead Americans to healthier habits. Much of the advice in Good Energy echoes health recommendations we've all heard for decades; getting regular exercise and plenty of fiber is good guidance, regardless of anyone's reasons for doing so. Switching out unhealthy habits for healthy ones will likely even improve your mitochondrial health, Jaya Ganesh, a mitochondrial-disease expert at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told me. After all, 'if you consistently beat your body up with unhealthy habits, everything is going to fall sick,' Ganesh said. But the mitochondrial approach to wellness carries risks, too. For patients with genetically caused mitochondrial disease, lifestyle changes might marginally improve some symptoms, Ganesh said, but attempting to cure such conditions with supplements and a healthy diet alone could be dangerous. Means also calls out medications—including antibiotics, chemotherapy, antiretrovirals, statins, and high-blood-pressure drugs—for interfering with mitochondria. Macleod told me that statins really do affect mitochondria, as do some antibiotics. (The latter makes sense: Mitochondria are thought to have evolved from bacteria more than a billion years ago.) That's no reason, though, to avoid any of these medications if a doctor has determined that you need them. And yet, a whole chapter of Good Energy is dedicated to the idea that readers should mistrust the motives of their doctors, who the authors say profit by keeping Americans sick. The book is less critical of the ways the wellness industry preys on people's fears. Zooming in on mitochondria might offer a reassuringly specific and seemingly scientific explanation of the many real ills of the U.S. population, but ultimately, Means and MAHA are only helping obscure the big picture.
Axios
11 hours ago
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1 in 10 Hoosiers over 65 has Alzheimer's
Nearly 11% of Hoosiers over 65 are living with Alzheimer's — more than 121,300 people — according to 2020 data shared in a new Alzheimer's Association report. Why it matters: More than 7 million American seniors now live with Alzheimer's, the highest number ever recorded, but addressing cognitive decline early can help stave off the disease. By the numbers: Almost two-thirds of Americans with Alzheimer's are women, per data cited in the report. Risk increases with age: 5.1% of people ages 65–74 have it, while a third of people 85 and older have it, per the report. Zoom in: Indiana's elderly population is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years, according to projections from the Indiana Business Research Center at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. One in every five Hoosiers (over 966,000 people) will be 65 or older by 2030. Marion County skews a bit younger. The elderly population percentage is here is poised to reach 16.2% in 2030. Stunning stat: The research center says the number of people 65 and up in Indiana will surpass 1.5 million by 2050, a 57% increase from 2015. Threat level: Nearly 18% of Hoosiers 45 and older already have subjective cognitive decline, according to the Alzheimer's Association. And the burden of care is often thrust onto family members. The Alzheimer's Association estimates about 219,000 Indiana caregivers provide unpaid care valued at $6.9 billion for loved ones with the disease. Zoom out: The highest rates of seniors with Alzheimer's are in D.C. (16.8%) and Maryland (12.9%). The lowest is in Alaska (8.8%). What they're saying: "It doesn't surprise me" that Alzheimer's incidence has increased, because the population is aging and "we're becoming more sophisticated in our options for diagnosing and testing for Alzheimer's disease," Lakelyn Eichenberger, a gerontologist and caregiving advocate at Home Instead, tells Axios. With cases climbing and age a key risk factor, early action is critical for managing the disease and accessing new treatments, Eichenberger says. Warning signs to watch for in high-risk age groups: Trouble finding the right word. Difficulty judging distances. Misplacing things and struggling to retrace steps. Between the lines: "If you're seeing patterns of these types of signs over an extended period of time," that could mean it's time to see a doctor about cognitive decline, Eichenberger says.
