Scientists are finally starting to figure out Alzheimer’s
A scan of the brain of a patient affected by Alzheimer's disease. | BSIP/UIG Via Getty Images For decades, research into Alzheimer’s disease has made painfully little progress. More than 7 million Americans are living with the disease, which is the most common cause of dementia. It’s incurable, and treatments have been hampered by groupthink, as well as by systemic fraud from some of the field’s most famous researchers. But there are finally signs that the field is turning a corner, including two new drugs, rolled out in the last few years, that can treat Alzheimer’s directly. “If somebody walks into a clinic right now and is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease,” Vox senior correspondent Dylan Scott tells Today, Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram, the drugs “will hopefully have some effect in slowing down their cognitive decline.” As Scott says, “The drug development pipeline is also starting to look much more robust” — even “revolutionary,” to quote one doctor he spoke with. The two talk about why researchers are more optimistic than they have been in years, whether GLP-1 drugs might help prevent Alzheimer’s, and an experimental surgery pioneered by doctors in China that has produced striking — but if unproven — reports of improvement in people...
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