In Part 2 of a two-part interview, Dr. Dale Bredesen looks forward to the rest of this century with optimism. We should see a virtual end to complex chronic illnesses like Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, cancer, lupus, autoimmune and metabolic diseases, he believes. It’s a big statement, but it is informed by his decades-long Alzheimer’s Disease research

Dr. Bredesen is currently the Chief Science Officer (CSO) of Apollo Health and a professor at UCLA.  He was founding CEO of the Buck Institute for Age Research in Marin County, CA.  Dr. Bredesen is a NYT best selling author with his book, The End of Alzheimer’s.  Since, he’s authored two more books, The End of Alzheimer’s Programme and his most recent The First Survivors of Alzheimers. 

But, although Dr. Bredesen is optimistic about the future of chronic diseases like Alzheimer’s, he’s not optimistic about the current state of research. He believes there is a huge mountain of assumptions about this disease which have turned out to be incorrect. “When you’ve got essentially what’s been called the Alzheimer’s mafia,” he says, “when you’ve got a group of people who are basing their careers and their finances on one way of thinking, of course, they’re not going to support a different way of thinking, especially when that way of thinking says, ‘Look, what you guys are doing is wrong. You’ve been going in the wrong direction.’ ”  

So Alzheimer’s is with us for the foreseeable future. But in this interview Dr. Bredesen tells us many things each of us can do to prevent it.  First, get your genetics tested to determine what your APOE-4 status is.  He then talks about the four main drivers of the disease and the ability to change each.  There’s also a tau blood test that is proving to have merit for early diagnosis even before symptoms appear. There’s a state called synaptoblastic mode which can help prevent this disease through ketosis, restoring insulin sensitivity and making sure you’re getting the oxygen you need at night.