Tackling dementia: New approach urged
Dementia is estimated to cost Australia's economy $18bn each year, a figure that will more than double to $37bn in 25 years.
But Professor Henry Brodaty spoke to the National Press Club on Wednesday about the need for a new approach to tackling brain health.
He said tackling the syndrome would increase productivity in Australia, and delaying the effects of it would allow people to work longer, especially as the workforce ages.
A new approach was needed with increased investment to become a world leader in preventing or delaying dementia onset, he said.
'Think about the slip, slop, slap for skin health,' he said.
'We need the slip, slop, slap of brain health, now.
'Funding for dementia has lagged behind cancer and heart disease, even though it contributes more to disease burden.
'Research is critical to find the best ways to provide services efficiently.'
He said dementia develops in Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders at 2-5 times the rate of the rest of the population, and suggested steps to counter this.
'Better care before, during and after pregnancy, and in early childhood, and particularly more education, could make a difference to this,' he said.
Professor Brodaty said personalised coaching programs improved brain cognition, and increased people's fitness — pushing back the onset of dementia by a year or more.
He said this could save Australia billions.
'Imagine what the return on investment would be if Australia did this?' he asked.
'Improving fitness, not only would improve cognition, it would improve fitness, physical, mental and social health.'
But Professor Brodaty said Australia's National Dementia Action Plan has only $166m in funding, 'too little for what Australia needs'.
'I sympathise with the government, because there's always competing priorities and there's always other things that can be funded,' he said.
'But, when it makes sense economically, as well as personally to people, then why not do it?'
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Medscape
15 hours ago
- Medscape
Alcohol and Pancreatic Cancer: New Evidence About Risk
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The other model, which compared risk by alcohol volume categories, found that the risk does not become significant until a certain alcohol threshold — about two to three drinks per day for men and one to two for women. Still, overall, 'our findings provide new evidence that pancreatic cancer may be another cancer type associated with alcohol consumption, a connection that has been underestimated until now,' the study's senior author Pietro Ferrari, PhD, head of the Nutrition and Metabolism Branch at International Agency for Research on Cancer, said in a statement. The co-author Jeanine Genkinger, PhD, MHS, had a stronger take on the findings. 'I think this shows that alcohol use is a robust risk factor for pancreatic cancer,' said Genkinger, associate professor, epidemiology, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York City, noting that even more moderate drinking levels— no more than one drink for women and two for men — might be enough to boost pancreatic cancer risk. How Much of a Risk? The latest data, published in PLoS Medicine, come at a time of increased attention to the alcohol-cancer link. Earlier this year, then-US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, MD, issued an advisory calling for cancer warnings to be added to alcohol labels. Major cancer organizations have determined alcohol to be an established risk factor for seven cancer types : those of the oral cavity, larynx, pharynx, esophagus, liver, breast, and colon/rectum. Despite the strong suspicion that drinking alcohol also contributes to pancreatic cancer risk, this aggressive cancer has not yet made the official list. The major reason is that the evidence surrounding an alcohol-pancreatic cancer link has been deemed 'inconsistent,' 'suggestive,' and 'inconclusive' by expert panels. Studies have been hampered by difficulties separating alcohol use from smoking — a known risk factor for pancreatic cancer — as well as varying findings by alcohol type and geographic location. In addition, certain studies highlighting a link have indicated that any association between alcohol and pancreatic cancer is driven only by more extreme drinking habits — more than four drinks a day, and sometimes as high as nine drinks. The latest analysis, Genkinger said, helps clarify uncertainty surrounding the alcohol-pancreatic cancer link, which is especially important for 'a disease where we don't have that many modifiable risk factors.' The findings are based on cohorts spanning four continents, all part of the Pooling Project of Prospective Studies of Diet and Cancer. Just under 2.5 million cancer-free participants were recruited between 1980 and 2013 (median age, 57 years), of whom 70% were alcohol drinkers, 47% were never-smokers, and 64% were alcohol drinkers and never smokers. Most study participants were from North America (60%), followed by Europe or Australia (32%) and Asia (8%). Alcohol intake was modeled in two ways: continuously for every 10 g/d increase and by volume threshold, using 0.1 to < 5 g/d as the reference for nondrinkers. For context, in the US, the amount of alcohol in a standard drink is defined as 14 g of pure alcohol — equivalent to a 12-ounce can of regular beer, a 5-ounce glass of wine, or a 1.5-ounce shot glass of distilled spirits. Over a median of 16 years, the researchers observed 10,067 incidents of pancreatic cancers. In the continuous model, the risk for pancreatic cancer rose by 3% for every additional 10 g of alcohol consumed per day (hazard ratio [HR],1.03; 95% CI, 1.02-1.04). This association remained consistent and significant among women and men (HR, 1.03 for both), current smokers (HR, 1.03), former smokers (HR, 1.02), and never-smokers (HR, 1.03), and across cohorts from Australia, Europe, and North America (HR, 1.03 for all), though not Asia (HR, 1.00). The research team also found evidence that the type of alcohol mattered: Alcohol from beer and liquor/spirits was associated with a significantly increased risk for pancreatic cancer (HR, 1.02 and 1.04, respectively) but alcohol from wine was not (HR, 1.00). This finding is in line with some previous studies suggesting that wine may have a different relationship with cancer risk compared with other alcoholic beverages. But Genkinger pointed out, this finding could 'reflect the ways in which people tend to drink different types of alcohol.' Wine, she noted, is often part of a meal, and people who favor wine may be less likely to binge drink than those who typically choose other types of alcohol. 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Having the Conversation The recent Surgeon General's advisory encouraged clinicians to inform their patients that drinking is a cancer risk factor — something unknown to most Americans, according to recent survey findings. 'I think this study is a good reminder to all of us to talk to our patients about their alcohol use,' said Edward Thomas Lewis III, MD, an addiction psychiatrist and clinical assistant professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina. Providers can take opportunities for those discussions during routine care, such as when prescribing a medication that can interact with alcohol or when a patient's health condition, such as high blood pressure or heart disease, can be exacerbated by drinking. 'I think these are opportunities to really remind people about moderation,' Lewis said, 'and to talk about some of the individual risk factors that may cause someone to make changes related to their drinking.' 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Given the associations between drinking alcohol and many health outcomes, Genkinger said, it's important for clinicians to discuss alcohol use, just as they would discuss physical activity and healthy body weight. 'These are all lifestyle factors that have an impact on numerous disease outcomes, not only pancreatic cancer,' she said.
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
Creyos Featured in Alzheimer's Research at AAIC 2025
Findings from Western University, QIMR Berghofer, and Rotman Research Institute underscore the power of Creyos in detecting early risk, validating digital testing, and uncovering markers of cognitive resilience. Used in over 400 peer-reviewed studies, Creyos continues to power cutting-edge brain health research around the world. TORONTO, July 29, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Creyos, the digital platform trusted by clinicians and researchers to assess brain health with precision and ease, was featured in three independent research presentations at the 2025 Alzheimer's Association International Conference (AAIC). The studies demonstrate how Creyos is helping researchers advance the science of early detection, understand risk, and explore what protects cognitive health as we age. Built on more than 30 years of neuroscience research and validated in over 400 peer-reviewed studies, Creyos enables fast, reliable measurement of key cognitive domains—including memory, attention, reasoning, and executive function. For decades, leading research institutions have leveraged the platform to explore large-scale questions that demand high-quality, scientifically reliable data, with three notable studies chosen for presentation at AAIC this year. "Creyos wasn't born in a boardroom—it came out of necessity in the lab," said Adrian Owen, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Imaging at the University of Western Ontario, Chief Scientific Officer at Creyos, and co-author of one of the featured AAIC posters. "It started as a way to solve a problem I faced in my own research—how to measure cognition in a way that's both rigorous and scalable. 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With nearly 20 million assessments completed and more than 10,000 providers actively using the platform, Creyos is reshaping how brain health is measured, bridging the gap between research insights and real-world care. About Creyos Creyos, formerly known as Cambridge Brain Sciences, is a pioneering healthcare technology company dedicated to transforming how healthcare providers assess and manage patient brain health. Supporting clinicians and health systems worldwide, the Creyos platform includes objective online tasks, digital behavioral health screeners, and condition-specific assessments that deliver actionable insights, promote early intervention, and enable evidence-based clinical decisions for various cognitive and behavioral health conditions, including dementia, ADHD, depression, anxiety, and others. Backed by 30 years of research and a normative database of over 85,000 participants, the FDA-registered Creyos platform has been published in over 400 peer reviewed studies and is recognized as a scientifically-validated solution for measuring and monitoring patient brain health. For more information about Creyos visit Media Contactcreyos@ View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Creyos Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
CNN
16 hours ago
- CNN
FIRST ON CNN: Dramatic lifestyle changes can fight early-stage Alzheimer's, study says. Here's how
Chronic diseases Dementia Getting older Food & healthFacebookTweetLink Follow As her memory faded from Alzheimer's disease in her late 50s, Tammy Maida began to lose track of her life. Car keys, eyeglasses and her purse disappeared multiple times a day. Key characters in novels she was reading were forgotten. Groceries were left in the garage. Keeping the books for the family's businesses became impossible. 'I honestly thought I was losing my mind, and the fear of losing my mind was frightening,' Maida told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta in the 2024 CNN documentary 'The Last Alzheimer's Patient.' After 20 weeks in a randomized clinical trial designed to drastically change her diet, exercise, stress levels and social interactions, Maida's cognition improved. She was able to read and recall novels and correctly balance spreadsheets again. A blood test even found levels of amyloid, a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease, were retreating in her brain, according to the study published in June 2024. 'I'm coming back. It was really good — like I was prior to the disease being diagnosed,' Maida, now 68, told a researcher on the study. 'An older but better version of me.' Maida's cognition showed additional improvement, however, after she completed a total of 40 weeks of intensive lifestyle changes, said principal investigator Dr. Dean Ornish, a clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and creator of the Ornish diet and lifestyle medicine program. Ornish gave a study update on Tuesday at the 2025 Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Toronto. While not everyone in the 26-person interventional group benefited, 46% showed improvement in three of four standardized tests, he said, including one that measures changes in memory, judgment and problem-solving as well as the ability to function at home, practice hobbies and practice personal hygiene. 'An additional 37.5% of people showed no decline in cognition during those 40 weeks,' Ornish said. 'Thus, over 83% of patients improved or maintained their cognition during the five-month program.' The new findings mirrored those of other studies on lifestyle interventions, he said, including the recent US POINTER study, the largest clinical trial in the United States to test moderate lifestyle interventions over two years in people who are at risk but do not yet have Alzheimer's disease. 'Our study complements these findings by showing, for the first time, that more intensive lifestyle changes may often stop or even begin to reverse the decline in cognition in many of those who already have Alzheimer's disease, and these improvements often continue over a longer period of time,' Ornish told CNN. And unlike available medications for Alzheimer's, he added, lifestyle changes have no side effects, such as bleeding and swelling in the brain that may occur with the newest class of drugs. EmblemHealth, a New York-based insurance company, announced Tuesday that it will be the first health insurer to cover the Ornish lifestyle medicine program for patients who have early-stage Alzheimer's disease. The lifestyle intervention Ornish created — which he calls 'eat well, move more, stress less and love more' — has been tested before. In 1990, Ornish showed for the first time in a randomized clinical trial that coronary artery disease could often be reversed with nothing more than diet, exercise, stress reduction and social support. The US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, declared in 2010 that Ornish's program for reversing heart disease was an 'intensive cardiac rehabilitation' and that it would be eligible for reimbursement under Medicare. Additional research has shown the same four-part program can lower blood sugars and heart disease risk in patients with diabetes, reduce prostate cancer cell growth, improve depression and even lengthen telomeres, the protective caps of chromosomes that are worn away by aging. During the Ornish intervention, one group of people consumed a strict vegan diet, did daily aerobic exercise, practiced stress reduction and engaged in online support groups. The rest of the participants were in a control group and were asked to not make any changes in their daily habits. Therapists led hour-long group sessions three times a week in which participants were encouraged to share their feelings and ask for support. Meditation, deep breathing, yoga and other ways to reduce stress took up another hour every day. The program also encouraged participants to prioritize good-quality sleep. Supplements were provided to everyone in the intervention group, including a daily multivitamin, omega-3 fatty acids with curcumin, coenzyme Q10, vitamin C and B12, magnesium, a probiotic, and Lion's mane mushroom. In addition to online strength training led by a physical trainer, people in the intervention attended hour-long video classes on vegan nutrition hosted by a dietitian. Then, to ensure a vegan diet was followed, all meals and snacks for both participants and their partners were delivered to their homes. Complex carbs found in whole grains, vegetables, fruits, tofu, nuts and seeds made up most of the diet. Sugar, alcohol and refined carbs found in processed and ultraprocessed foods were taboo. While calories were unrestricted, protein and total fat made up only some 18% of the daily caloric intake — far less than the typical protein intake by the average American, Ornish said. Working harder pays off People in the intervention group who put the most effort into changing their lifestyle have the most improvement in their cognition, said Ornish, founder and president of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute and coauthor of 'Undo It! How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases.' 'There was a statistically significant dose-response relationship between the degree of adherence to our lifestyle changes and the degree of improvement we saw on measures of cognition,' Ornish said. The 25 people in the study's original 20-week control group — who did not receive the intervention — had shown further cognitive decline during the program. They were later allowed to join the intervention for 40 weeks and significantly improved their cognitive scores during that time, Ornish said. It all makes sense, said co-senior study author Rudy Tanzi, an Alzheimer's researcher and professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School in Boston. 'If you picture a brain full of damage as a sink full of water, when you just turn off the tap, it takes a long time for that sink to slowly drain, right?' Tanzi told CNN in 2024. 'If you want the amyloid to go down in 20 weeks, as we found on one blood test, you're going to need a Roto-Rooter.' In the 2024 study, a blood test called plasma Aβ42/40 showed a significant improvement in the original intervention group. Aβ42/40 measures the level of amyloid in the blood, a key symptom of Alzheimer's. Tests that measure amyloid in different ways, however, did not show improvement, Dr. Suzanne Schindler, an associate professor of neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis who specializes in blood biomarkers told CNN at the time. There was no significant change in a test for amyloid called p-tau 181, considered to be a superior measure of Alzheimer's risk, said Schindler, who was not involved in the study. Nor was there any change in glial fibrillary acidic protein, or GFAP, another blood biomarker that seems to correlate reasonably well with Alzheimer's disease. 'If one of these markers improves, you typically see all of them improve, so the fact they did not makes me wonder whether this effect is real,' Schindler said. 'If they were to repeat the study with a much larger population for a longer period of time, perhaps more change could be seen.' Over the complete 40-week program, however, a number of people in the intervention group did continue to improve their Aβ42/40 scores, according to the study update. 'Changes in amyloid — as measured as the plasma Aβ42/40 ratio — occur before changes in tau markers such as p-tau 218, so this is not surprising after only 40 weeks,' Ornish said. For Ornish, who has watched members of his family die from Alzheimer's disease, the study's results are important for one key reason — hope. 'So often when people get a diagnosis of dementia or Alzheimer's, they are told by their doctors that there is no future, 'It's only going to get worse, get your affairs in order.' That's horrible news and is almost self-fulfilling,' Ornish said. 'Our new findings empower patients who have early-stage Alzheimer's disease with the knowledge that if they make and maintain these intensive lifestyle changes, there is a reasonably good chance that they may slow the progression of the disease and often even improve it,' he said. 'Our study needs to be replicated with larger, more diverse groups of patients to make it more generalizable,' Ornish said. 'But the findings we reported today are giving many people new hope and new choices — and the only side effects are good ones.' Get inspired by a weekly roundup on living well, made simple. Sign up for CNN's Life, But Better newsletter for information and tools designed to improve your well-being.
