I’m actually in a lab studying Alzheimer’s disease, specifically the protein tau...it is amazing and terrifying how much we don’t know about it

Alzheimer’s is a heinous disease!! I lost a great aunt to it!!! I wouldn’t wish that horror on my worst enemy!!! It takes the person you love. But leaves the body!!! They still look like your parent or loved one. But they are slipping away bit by bit!!!

I've worked several years with people with dementia (young and old) and the best method to 'slow decline' is to keep those people triggered and keep practicising their motor and cognitive skills via cycling (or whatever the person used to do), catching ball, hitting balloons, puzzles, board games and other certain activities to keep the brain stimulated. I've seen people not able to eat or speak because it weren't stimulated, bloom and regain those skills because they are challenged to do that.

!!! THIS VIDEO WAS EXCELLENT I'm literally going to send this to anyone who wants to know what I study! Thank you!! Some bonus stuff for anyone in the comments who is interested: - The two symptomatic treatments of Alzheimer's only lead to very small improvements (but they are clinically significant and not due to a placebo effect) to cognition (just 1-3 point improvements on cognitive tests like the MMSE). They also come with side effects, so there are some questions about whether they are worthwhile but they do seem to delay nursing home admission. - Biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease can be found in CSF by doing a spinal tap, you would see high levels of tau and low levels of amyloid-beta (because it is trapped in the brain). This is used regularly in the UK, but it is obviously quite distressing to have a lumbar puncture. - The antibody studies that were mentioned in this video have been shown to reduce the number of amyloid plaques however one of the problems that they are failing is because they do not lead to any subsequent improvements to cognition. It is thought that it could be the case that by the time Alzheimer's disease is at a clinical level it could be too late to stop cognitive decline as the brain is already too damaged. They are still trying different drugs but it could be useful for pre-clinical populations like MCI. Or it could just show that amyloid-beta plaques don't have anything to do with the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, which is why they also occur in the brains of healthy older adults with no cognitive deficits. The study design for some trials also had problems because it is possible that not all participants had been correctly diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and could have had different types of dementia that would effect the results.

my grandpa had alzheimer's the hardest part was when he didn't remember who I was. one day he said he'd love to have a grandson like me. I would never still from him he trusts me. I went in his bedroom because I had to cry. I loved my grandpa.

My grandmother just passed tonight from complications related to this terrible condition. She suffered though Alzheimer's for about 5 years prior. It is an awful disease, and far from 'normal aging.' Thank you, SciShow for giving a bit of solace and comfort through knowledge and understanding.

Coincidentally my grandmother just passed from Alzheimer's disease 2 days ago. I'm at peace knowing she doesn't have to deal with it anymore. Cool that people won't accept "it's just a age thing", they insist in figuring it out. Like video game programmers working on the next patch to fix life. ✊🙏

My grandmother had developed Alzheimer's disease a couple of years ago, and I just watch her get worse everyday. I wish they would hurry up and find a cure! I love her so much. 😭

I work in Alzheimers/Dementia care and I love it! My residents are all amazing people and it is a fun and at times stressful job (not to mention rewarding), but let me say I look forward and cannot wait to be out of the job. I wouldn't wish this disease on my worst enemy.

You should have included the fact that most insurances won't cover the Alzheimer pills and they cost more than the average person can even begin to afford.

I'm 20 seconds in and your "pros" of aging are making me want to never age

Ok but do you think they’d figure it out by the time I’m 60 because we all know that’s what we clicked on this video for

My mom passed away from early-onset Alzheimer's in 2017. I took care of her and I've seen what the disease does. I've been told that my chances of getting the disease are much higher than normal, and I hope they find something that can stop the disease because I'd rather be dead than have to live through that.

Glad to see a big production still holding strong and representing here in MT. Montana has done huge work for Alzheimer's research, my cousin and many others with governor Bullock helped pulled in millions and millions of funding. It runs deep in our family and hits close home here.

As it's been about ten months since I lost my grandmother to Alzheimer's disease, I really, *really* hope these treatments currently in studies/testing/clinical trials work. I wouldn't wish the pain of watching a loved one's mind go on anyone.

Music therapy! Learn an instrument! At any stage in life, it is PROVEN to promote and sustain cognitive function, including memory and things related to dementia! Music is good for your brain, whether you played in middle school and quit, have been playing all your life, or are older and just starting. I watched an incredible lecture about this for one of my music classes. Definitely worth researching. Science and the arts are not separate entities, they are SO related.

My grandfather (2nd marriage of Grams) died from Alzheimer's complications. He was a strapping 200+ retired Navy Sailor. Used to do gem cutting for a hobby. Couldn't feed himself, ended up weighing about 80lbs before he passed. Alzheimer's is a brutal, horrific disease. 😟

Finally a proper question. And would it be possible to use crispr to fix bad genes related to alzheimer's?

I’ve witnessed dementia and Alzheimer’s first hand and honestly it’s horrific, some people I’ve cared for got so bad that their families stopped visiting because there was nothing left of the original person they loved. Personally if I ever get diagnosed with these diseases I’ll kill myself, that’s the harsh truth.

My dad has Lewy body dementia. When I try to explain it to people, their eyes glaze over, so now I just tell them he has dementia. Their eyes light up and they triumphantly say "Oh, Alzheimer's!" I understand that it's the most common form of dementia, but it's frustrating sometimes that Alzheimer's has such public awareness, but other forms of dementia do not have the same recognition, the same accuracy in diagnosis (LBD in particular is often misdiagnosed as Parkinsons), nor the same research dollars. Additionally, even when these conditions are diagnosed, most doctors don't have any awareness of how certain medications interact with them. My dad had severe hallucinations and bouts of extreme rage for years in his 50s because his doctor was prescribing three different antidepressants to him that exacerbated the problem instead of recognizing that his mood issues were a normal result of his LBD.

Can you make a video proving that weed doesn't cure every thing? I'm so sick of my friends thinking that it's the cure-all drug. 😒

The number of armchair doctors with Google University degrees that came out in the comments here... I'm not used to that from a SciShow video's comments section O_O . 1. There's no study that significantly links meat-eating to Alzheimer's, nor to the buildup of amyloid beta plaques. 2. There's no study that shows weed can help Alzheimer's any better than a placebo. (Same is true of Parkinson's, by the way.) 3. If I'm wrong about #1 or #2, please correct me -- by providing a link to any such scientific study that uses the actual scientific method and hasn't been retracted or failed under reproduction.

I already forget everything at the age of 21

Interesting video as usual but I am a little disappointed that you didn't mention the relatively recent correlation between Alzheimer's and diabetes. There is even a new drug study that showed a diabetes drug was able to reverse memory loss. Unfortunately this was in mice and not people but still it is a really intriguing correlation would have been a good addition of this video.

Thanks for this video- my grandmother died of Alzheimer's back in 2012 and it was ugly.

When I was younger I thought it was called old timers disease lol

I am at the stage of hating my aggressive mother-in-law. It is a disease that affects an entire family across generations. She suffered a stroke, which allowed her dementia to fully surface. She thinks her mother is still around (she died 30 years ago), she asks for family members I've never heard of before, asks the same question several times in a span of five minutes and if the answer displeases her, she goes into Terminator mode. You can't reason with her. So, it is safe to say that I will rejoice the day she dies and I hope it will happen soon. My family is exhausted, emotionally and financially.

I can’t believe all the insensitive comments making fun of it. As a person living with a partner with dementia, I find all these comments offensive

should have brought up how diphenhydramine worsens alzheimers (maybe do a separate video on the dangers of it, especially in the elderly?)

What causes people with alzheimers or dementia to remember songs from their childhood better than anything else?

Lost my Grandma to Dementia couple years ago. This is one of the worst thing that can happen to anyone. It's like living with a coma except you have moving body parts. Just imagine living in your body but with no brain. It's like looking at a body with no soul. Daunting.

A+ shirt choice for the video Error 406: Not acceptable

One thing my family thinks might possibly contribute to Alzheimers is mercury (such as what you find in a lot of sea foods). We can't be certain, but we do know that my grandfather really loved tuna and ate almost obscene amounts of it. He's also the only case of Alzheimers in our family can think of and it was a very severe case. He went from being reasonably capable of taking care of himself to needing to be in a home within a couple years. It was only another few years before he passed away. It's really only a hypothesis and none of us are experts, but I think it would be interesting to see some studies done.

You know what would make people's lives better and patients more comfortable? G/D DECENT HEALTH COVERAGE. All these new drugs sound fine, but if 99% of people can't afford them, what good are they? Anyhow, sorry ...

Is there anyway to have subtitles in Spanish for your videos? I would love if my mom could watch them with subtitles

Answer of the question according to the video: We didn't make any significant progress. We'll never make progress. Kiss your loved ones goodbye, on the most emotionally painful end road. This is the truth. I'm gonna go cry now because my beloved, auntie of 64 years is still here, but she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2016. Besides her Alzheimer's, she also fell on her head last year, and had a concussion, and had to go through brain surgery to release a lot of pressure in there. We're a bit of a close family, so we take care of her ourselves instead of cart her off to an old-folks-home. (I've also heard horror stories, so..) It's just sad to know that we've all been lied to. I think I'll stop here. I'm just a selfish, upset, loved one. The truth hurts a lot, I guess.

my grandmother had alzheimers, she was heavily effected by cerebral degeneration and eventually passed from from a pneumonial infection

This is very prevalent on my father's side of the family. My grandfather had Alzheimer's. My two uncles had Lewy Body Dementia, both passed on. My father has dementia, and my aunt has dementia. So far, the youngest sibling of their family, an aunt shows no signs of it. My father has older half siblings from my grandfather's previous marriages, none of them have dementia or Alzheimer's. So my brother, cousins, and I aren't exactly thrilled about our chances.

When I'm 50 I'm going to put in my will that if I get Alzheimer's or dementia to do whatever you want with my brain as long as it is beneficial to science and other people

My grandmother has vascular dementia and been living with us for the last few years, it's been so depressing watching her memories deteriorate to the point where she sometimes forgets her daughter's (my mother) name

I’m 20 but I’m almost certain I have early onset, from brain damage to drug abuse. Life is so scary and confusing I just want this confusion to end

my grandma has alzheimer’s. she can’t walk, talk, go to the bathroom, or recognize others by herself. she’s also very aggressive with the people who try to help her. I miss my grandma. although she’s still physically here with us, all of our family knows she’s basically gone.

My grandmother died recently after the extremely quick progression of this disease in her . I deeply hope we can find a cure for this disease in our lifetimes so that no one else has to suffer like she did or many others I have seen.

Ever since my grandfather died from Alzheimer's disease I've been fascinated by how it works. Great vid.

This disease terrifies me, knowing that I can forget who I am when I get old just makes me shiver I hope we can find something to stop this

I'm an in home care provider. That last little bit, about making people as comfortable as possible? That is part of what we do. No matter what it is, no matter the age , when it comes right down to it, its all about the people with the health issues. Some forget this. The victims are PEOPLE. They need to be taken care of. Properly.

I pray that by the time I’m 50, we’ll have the technology to stop these diseases.

My grandfather died from Alzheimer’s a few years ago. Never got to meet him since he was late into symptoms when i was about 2.

I'd love to hear about modern progress on battling Parkinson's disease.

I really hope this works. Also, even better would be to actually slow down or actually stop the aging process which causes many of these conditions in the first place. The point is not to only extent a person's lifespan, but the actual "healthspan". My grandfather suffered from dementia. It was very hard to watch a person slowly whither away. It really is the "long goodbye"

I just finished watching (still alive), a movie about familial alzheimer's disease , what a terrifying disease.

(406)... What?

Just hurry up and find a cure already because it’s terrifying

Sucks when they forget to eat, my nana is hospitalized atm cause of it. Its sad how they slowly lose their life. Hopefully they'lll come up with a solution in a future.

I'd like to know the outcome of the coconut c8 oil trials and if there are any studies on using long term fasting to help clear plaques via autophagy?

Yess!! Now my day is complete with some sci-show!

Please make more videos on this topic, and link places to donate so we can research and develop ways to cure this horrifying illness, I'm sending blessings to everyone who is affected by this terrible disease

Chronic aluminum neurotoxicity. Many humans routinely ingest aluminum salts as additives contained in processed foods and alum-treated drinking water. The physical properties of aluminum and ferric iron ions are similar, allowing aluminum to use mechanisms evolved for iron to enter vulnerable neurons involved in AD progression, accumulate in those neurons, and cause neurofibrillary damage.

Unfortunately lost my grandfather earlier this month to Alzheimer's (ironically enough, the day this was uploaded)

Will you do one on the Liquid Salt Reactors nonsense? My friend won't stop talking about it for 2 months now and he really holds this show in high regards.

Best prevention for alzheimers: learn a new language or deeply learn new things all the time. It creates more neural pathways so if some of them are damaged your memory is not affected as bad.

There's been a lot of research into anti inflammatory diets and healthy keto diets positively impacting brain function and reducing deterioration associated with dementia

How close? Not flippin’ close enough 😣

As of the DSM-V, "dementia" is now termed as either "major neurocognitive disorder" or "mild neurocognitive disorder."

We're here for you, Mr. President.

THANK YOU SCISHOW!!!! Loved the video and LOVE THIS CHANNEL!! But will you PLEASE DO A VIDEO ON GLIOMAS?!?!?!

Great vid.....thanks. And how to explain early-onset Alzheimer's if it's purely aging and not Amyloid plack? Pat Summit was in her mid-fifties when it started.

Failed trials should be published so someone out there can notice patterns and discover WHY trials keep failing. Negative results are usually more helpful than positive ones.

This dude is great. Excellent presentation. Thank you very much!

My grandma died in Alzheimer's disease, we don't know that she had that kind of disease we all known that she had high blood, but eventually we saw the symptoms she forgot everything slowly and sometimes she pee already but she doesn't know.

Those senior discounts are gonna be sweeeeeett

Everyone remembers Hank Norris when Hank Norris enters the room. Hank Norris is the cure for Alzheimer's.

My grandpa had vascular dementia, such a sad disease

I just wonder when they do find a cure for dementia would they have to learn everything over my father has dementia He was a vegetarian and took lots of vitamins and herbs and only ate 1 meal a day he worked for Chicago public Transit and worked there all the way up into his late 70’s as a carpenter and out worked even the younger guys on the job

People can look at this negatively or positively. Modern medicine is barely 100 years old. A lot comes from the 20th century. imagine the next 80 years of development in the same way we look back on the last 80 years.

If i ever get alzheimers or dementia and i progress to the point were i cant even remember my families names i would rather be put down than let my family go through that.

Not eating animal products, oils and coconuts is one of the best ways to drastically decrease your chances of alzheimers (Also cardiovascular disesaes), as once you've got it you can only slow it down through diet.

We really need to research stuff like Noopept and Alpha-GPC. Some nootropics have shown so much promise...

I was under the impression that a company had made a technique that dissolves the built up plaques and therefore reinstate the access to the memory locations?

hi (sorry for my bad english)

Is sugar, refine, the one a whole grain bread sugar, the sugar in broccoli, the sugars in your apples.

Saturday morning neuroscience. It is inaccurate to say that the current treatments shown "slow the progression" of Alzheimer's. The cholinergic hypothesis is still a subject of strong debate, and both drugs are cognitive enhancing drugs. They help a patient be better at the things they're getting worse at, not completely, but enough to need less care. They act similarly to drugs of abuse and they probably don't attack the cause of the disease. This is difficult to study, because it is hard to see tangles and Abeta in the living, human brain. That's why it's been so hard to solve: we really need tools that are just coming online now to do experiments, and we really just need to do a lot of basic science to tease apart the players. But hey, acetylcholine is super interesting! It's hypothesized to be part of how your memory notices new things to store, and the mechanisms of it are one of the things I am studying.

Not close enough!

What about what Hank Green said about the Alzheimer's being caused by the after effects of viruses?

We are now 16 years behind.

Dad had so many personality and mood @changes all through his life, that when he started slipping no one even noticed. And THAT lead to 1.4 million in US dollars to walk out the door. @NON Linear illnesses will fool you.

I'm really interested in the research being done with senescent cells. I wonder if we can slow down biological aging will we still see the high numbers of people with diseases we associate with aging?

I watched my grandfather battle and eventually die from cancer. I watched my grandmother battle and die from Alzheimer's. After seeing both, I'd rather have cancer. At least you stay you until the end with cancer. At least until there is a cure or highly effective treatment for Alzheimer's.

I was hoping to hear the possible Diabetes link. I heard talk of some proponents even thinking Alzheimers should be called Type-3 Diabetes.

I hope that alzheimer's is cured soon. because my dad is 61. has had type 1 diabetes for 50 years now, he is a double amputee, has alzheimers, expressive aphasea, and frontal temporal lobe progressive degeneration. and everyday i am forced to watch as my dad slowly stops being the dad i know.

I'm told cause of genetics and my autoimmune disorder puts me at high risk of alzheimers and Parkinson. It's hard to cope with the idea of losing my self like that when I'm not even 20 yet.

I heard that doing stuff to exercise the brain like doing puzzles or playing video games when young can help to avoid or at least make it longer before the alzheimer appears. Is that in any way true? It was something about making the neurons stronger or something, but I think it might be bs

Lots of great bits of info in here on an often confusing topic. Two important additional distinctions...near the beginning, "...there is no reason we should not be able to find a cure..." There is one big reason: "curing" it would require us to re-animate dead tissue and that isn't going to happen. Better to focus the majority of research efforts on prevention. Second, there are a significant numbers of Alzheimer's patients who exhibit neither the amyloid plaques nor the tau protein tangles...the most likely cause was mentioned near the end - DNA damage to the mitochondria in the brain.

Would like to see something more on the ReCODE protocol, aka Bredesen protocol, and the research behind it. I hear they're reversing Alzheimer's, not just slowing it. Not sure how much research there is yet, but their results I've heard are promising.

Why have they not mentioned the studies done on cannibus

Looks like Stefan has a force field around him distorting the background.

Can't tell if his shirt is saying unacceptable or an area code is Montana..

Plaques, sound like it could have something to do with our diet. I wonder if what we eat can reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease. I wonder if a keto diet could help?

So Huperzine A can be a Alzheimer's treatment?

Tau is an interesting name for those black, crescent shaped tangles.