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CNN
29-07-2025
- Health
- CNN
Dramatic lifestyle changes can fight early-stage Alzheimer's, study says. Here's how
Source: CNN 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. 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.' See Full Web Article
Yahoo
29-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
FIRST ON CNN: Fighting early-stage Alzheimer's with intensive lifestyles changes works, study finds
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. 'Eat well, move more, stress less and love more' 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.' Additional blood testing may offer insights 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.
Forbes
19-07-2025
- Health
- Forbes
EmblemHealth Launches New AI-Personalized Weather Alert System
EmblemHealth's new AI-enabled Weather Resilience Program can warn people about any concerning ... More weather events as they emerge and tell them what to do about them. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images) If you're in the New York City area and get a call from Rachel, it may be time to start getting worried and do something about it. It's not as if Rachel is a bad person, though. In fact, Rachel isn't even a real person but is still interested in helping you. Or at least programmed to do so. Rachel is the name of the artificial intelligence-generated interface to EmblemHealth's new Weather Resilience Program that can warn you about any concerning weather events and give you advice on what to do. But Rachel goes beyond your standard weatherperson on TV. Rachel can have a conversation with you, sort of like a real person, and tailor the responses and advice to you and your specific needs. The Weather Alert System Offers More Personalized Advice Than Standard Weather Reports Rachel and this service is now available to members of EmblemHealth, one of the largest not-for-profit health insurers in the U.S.. And if you've got EmblemHelath for your health insurance, chances are Rachel will already know quite a bit about you. EmblemHealth's Chief Medical Officer, Daniel Knecht. MD, MBA, explained, 'The system has access to clinical data on EmblemHealth's members, including across Medicare and Medicaid and marries that with geospatial data.' Knecht added, 'One example of such geospatial data is the heat vulnerability index, which takes into account things like the amount of tree canopy and air conditioning in a neighborhood.' As you can see on the Heat Vulnerability Index or HVI website for New York City, different neighborhoods face different risks during the same heat wave. Heck, different neighborhoods may even be facing fairly different temperatures. Therefore, when you're feeling the heat, Rachel won't be simply saying stuff like, 'It's gonna be a hot one out there. Stay cool, NYC,' like you may hear on TV. Rachel may be telling you more specifically how much heat you'll be facing and how best to avoid it based on where you live. Rachel may also know your current health status and tell you how any medical conditions may make you have may make you more susceptible and what to do, Again, this is a voice conversation similar to a real-person-to-real-person conversation. AI is helping EmblemHealth do what would otherwise take many, many healthcare personnel, many more than are currently available. And Rachel has some flexibility that not every human might have. Heck, Hecht related how Rachel switched from English to Spanish as soon as Rachel recognized that a member on the line was more fluent in Spanish. The Weather Alert System Recognizes The Impact That Weather Can Have On Health If you are wondering 'weather' this is a good idea for a health insurer, remember that the weather can greatly affect different aspects of a person's health. Weather certainly has its effects on mental and emotional health. Just build on that song from The Carpenters that went 'Rainy days and Mondays always get me down' to see how. For example, your mood may fluctuate based on how much sun you are getting. Too little could leave you feeling down and even depressed. Too much could leave you feeling irritable and exhausted. Then there are the direct physical health effects of weather. For example, last Summer, I wrote in Forbes about how heat and humidity can lead to heat cramps, exhaustion and stroke as well as exacerbate chronic medical conditions like heart disease. Knecht called heat 'a silent killer, causing direct events and also tremendous stress on the human body.' So if you've got an underlying medical condition like heart disease, heat could tip you over the edge. This is true with the opposite of heat as well. Cold weather can lead to direct effects like frostbite. It can also exacerbate underlying conditions. Breathing in cold air for example can trigger major breathing difficulties in someone with an underlying respiratory disease. Moreover, your head and mind are not separate from your body. (If they happen to be separated, call your doctor immediately.) Therefore, your mental and emotional health can affect your physical health and vice-versa. For example, mental and emotional stress from an extreme weather event can lead to physical stress. Humans aren't the only ones affected by their surroundings. More extreme weather can be 'ruff' on dogs and other pets as well. That can end up affecting the humans who care for them too. That's why warnings about pets are part of EmblemHealth's weather alert system. Climate Change Is Increasing The Need For Weather Alert Systems One could say that this is the right climate for more personalized weather alert systems. Or perhaps the right, wrong climate. If you haven't noticed, there's this thing called climate change that's been happening for a while. It's already been leading to more and more extreme weather events over time like heat waves, as I've written before in Forbes, Climate change has also been laying the ground for more and more disasters like wildfires by leaving the ground drier and drier and more likely to catch fire, which I wrote about in May, These more extreme weather events and disasters in turn bring even more health threats more frequently. For example, wildfires can not only cause direct injury and damage to people and property but can also spew all sorts of nasty stuff into the air. 'In June 2023, New York City had some of the worst air quality in the world,' Knecht recalled. 'This was due to the wildfires in Canada.' Such poor air quality can result in lung and heart problems as well as potentially cause cancer down the road, as I covered in Forbes two years ago. Hecht gave another example when he related, 'The heat wave two weeks ago [in June] led to more than 100 ER visits.' This meant of course many indivdiuals were suffering bad health consequences. But it also meant more time and resources had to be allocated to their care. By further burdening already overburdened ERs, it could have affected the care of others as well. The Weather Alert System Is Aligned With EmblemHealth's Mission EmblemHealth's website indicates that their social mission includes 'identifying and addressing the ... More social determinants of health that can negatively impact health outcomes, especially in underserved communities.' (Photo by: GHI/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) It would make sense for a health insurer to be concerned about climate change and how the changing weather patterns may adversely affect human health. After all, more health problems mean more medical costs. Warning people about weather threats could end up being a lot less expensive than dealing with the effects of the threats. But this new weather alert system goes beyond just a dollars and makes sense type of thing. 'This aligns closely with EmblemHealth's social mission," Knecht emphasized. 'This is about going upstream and being proactive and supporting our vulnerable members when it comes to weather.' EmblemHealth's website indicates that their social mission includes 'identifying and addressing the social determinants of health that can negatively impact health outcomes, especially in underserved communities.' Since its launch, EmblemHealth has been tracking the success of this weather alert program. This has included surveying members, measuring how long their members are talking with Rachel, and track ER visits and inpatient stays. EmblemHealth has indicated that to date member satisfaction with the program has been a 9 out of 10 and the likelihood to recommend getting a call from Rachel has been a 9.2 out of 10. Conversations with Rachel have lasted an average of five minutes, which suggests that people are having more than just 'Hello, goodbye,' dialogues. The Weather Alert System Is About Precision Population Health Hecht referred to this program as another precision population health initiative. Precision population health is precisely what I wrote about in Forbes in May 2023. Precision population health is the opposite of one-size-fits-all approaches and is about better tailoring prevention measures and interventions to different members of the population. Treating everyone in a population the same health-wise would be like telling everyone to wear exactly the same sweater vest and skinny jeans, which is probably something you wouldn't want to see. A big part of precision population health is recognizing that people are not individuals floating independently in the ether. Instead, they interact with each other and their surroundings in many complex ways. So trying to address people's health without considering the weather would be a bit like trying to play a sport while ignoring the court or field.
Reuters
16-04-2025
- Business
- Reuters
AstraZeneca unit sued over alleged monopoly on blockbuster drug Soliris
April 16 (Reuters) - AstraZeneca's (AZN.L), opens new tab Alexion Pharmaceuticals was sued in Massachusetts federal court on Wednesday for allegedly misusing its patents to extend its monopoly on its blockbuster blood-disease drug Soliris. Health plan EmblemHealth said in the proposed class action lawsuit, opens new tab that Alexion wrongly obtained new patents to block biosimilar versions of Soliris for four years after its patents on the drug should have expired. EmblemHealth said the alleged scheme violated U.S. antitrust law and could cause overpayments of more than $2 billion for Soliris. Spokespeople for AstraZeneca did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the complaint. "We are concerned about practices that shut down competition and increase drug costs. That's what this litigation is about," an EmblemHealth spokesperson said. EmblemHealth is seeking to represent a class of U.S. Soliris buyers in the lawsuit. Soliris is used to treat rare blood disorders. AstraZeneca earned more than $1.4 billion from sales of the drug in the first half of 2024, according to a company report. EmblemHealth said in the lawsuit that AstraZeneca charges "one of the single highest drug costs in U.S. history" for Soliris, which costs "upwards of $500,000 per patient per year." AstraZeneca's patents covering Soliris should have expired in 2021, but the company misled the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to obtain more patents with expiration dates "well into the future," according to the complaint. The lawsuit said AstraZeneca used the new patents to "extract settlements" from competitors and delay their biosimilars until March 2025 at the earliest. EmblemHealth asked the court for an order ending AstraZeneca's monopoly on Soliris and an unspecified amount of monetary damages. The case is EmblemHealth Inc v. Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc, U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, No. 1:25-cv-10985. For EmblemHealth: Thomas Sobol and Gregory Arnold of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro; and Mark Fischer and Rob Griffith of Rawlings & Associates
