An Alzheimer's breakthrough?

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Noam Hassenfeld (1:20)

There are these almost surreal videos coming out of China.

SPEAKER_4 (1:25)

This is a gentleman, 76-year-old who was diagnosed with late stage Alzheimer's disease.

Noam Hassenfeld (1:32)

Alzheimer's patients who had trouble even communicating, they're getting this experimental surgery and they're answering questions.

SPEAKER_4 (1:42)

Observe how he will be sitting down unassisted.

Noam Hassenfeld (1:46)

They're talking like they used to.

SPEAKER_4 (1:49)

He now had coherent speech.

Noam Hassenfeld (1:52)

They're recognizing family members again.

SPEAKER_4 (1:55)

And in the second video, he was singing, and singing required higher brain function than just talking.

Noam Hassenfeld (2:02)

These videos are getting so much attention because for a long time, there's barely been any progress in Alzheimer's research. There have been starts. There have been dead ends. And Alzheimer's is this disease that doesn't just attack your body or your health. It doesn't just kill you. It steals your identity.

But recently, it seems like things are starting to shift. So I called up Dylan Scott. He's a senior correspondent at Vox, and he's been covering Alzheimer's for years. I wanted to ask him about these kind of shocking videos. And I also wanted to take stock of where we are right now on Alzheimer's research.

Turns out there's actually good news. After years of stalling, we're starting to make real progress. But today on Unexplainable, what does all this progress actually mean for people living with Alzheimer's? And are we any closer to a real cure?

Dylan Scott, welcome to the show.

Dylan Scott (3:28)

Thanks for having me.

Noam Hassenfeld (3:30)

So we're talking about Alzheimer's today, and you've been reporting on it for years. When did you first start digging in deep here?

Dylan Scott (3:40)

So my first big story on Alzheimer's was about five years ago.

And what was happening then, it was a really dark time for Alzheimer's science.

It had been decades since a new treatment had been approved for the drug. We didn't have anything that could actually, like, slow the disease down or even stop it or reverse it. The only treatments we had basically gave you a couple months of relief from your symptoms, but then after that wore off, it's like you were right back to your initial trajectory. And then about five years ago, there was this drug that was approved by the FDA, but it was really controversial. The FDA's scientific advisors had actually said it shouldn't be approved because the evidence of its effectiveness was not very strong and the evidence of serious side effects was pretty high. But the FDA went ahead and approved it anyway, and immediately it was like a mess. And it was really a harrowing moment for the community because it was like this emotional whiplash of like at first it seems like, oh, we've got what we've been waiting for, something that can slow down Alzheimer's disease. And then almost immediately it was like it was yanked away from these people. And this all happened in a context of like, you know, it had been decades, we hadn't really made any seemingly any progress. And at that time, scientists were really questioning like, do we have Alzheimer's disease completely wrong?

Noam Hassenfeld (5:06)

Okay, but you just wrote this piece where you said, believe the hype about the latest Alzheimer's breakthroughs. What are the breakthroughs? What's the hype?

Dylan Scott (5:15)

Yeah, trust me, I was as surprised as anybody to be writing that story. So there are a couple of things that happened in the years between 2021 and a couple of weeks ago when I wrote this story. We did have some new treatments that you can be prescribed tomorrow if you get diagnosed. We have exciting new ideas to prevent Alzheimer's disease from ever taking hold in the first place, and who knows? We've also got this experimental surgery that's now upended our understanding of what might be possible in terms of treating this disease. So it's like, we haven't cured it, we're not there yet. But there's, I think, yeah, a real belief now that maybe five, ten, fifteen years down the road, that Alzheimer's could be a treatable disease like many others, rather than this, you know, boogie man, that's like, it's coming for you, when you get it, you're going to totally lose your sense of identity, and eventually, it's going to kill you. That has been the paradigm for decades. And now it seems like there's a real possibility that we could break that and make Alzheimer's a treatable disease.