Decoding a woman’s risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

I was tasked with the duty of scanning people’s brains. And I think I’ve done around 7,000 brain scans in my life. Why are we getting so many women in here and diagnosing them with what we call mild cognitive impairment? Every time I search for answers, it was, “Louisa, just get back to your job.” No one could answer why.

I’m going to be talking to you about something very dear to my heart, Alzheimer’s disease. We’re going to be talking about decoding a woman’s risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Why? Why would I be talking about that? Well, that is because over the last 12 years, you probably don’t recognize me. This was about 2 in of collagen and about 20 lb ago. I set out on my mission. And that was just to really understand the human brain.

I was working in a neurology department. And I was tasked I’m a neurophysiologist, okay? So, I was tasked with the duty of scanning people’s brains. And I think I’ve done around 7,000 brain scans in my life. And something occurred to me. I was seeing double the amount of women. I had no idea why. I was also extremely naive 12 years ago. Every time I asked my superior, “Why are we getting so many women in here and diagnosing them with what we call mild cognitive impairment?” MCI, it’s a pre-dementia state. Every time I search for answers, it was, “Louisa, just get back to your job.” No one could answer why.

Until this one woman came in. She was around 56 years old. Three kids, a husband. We saw her over the course of 2 years. Over those 2 years, she went from saying, “Hi, Louisa.” to “Are you my daughter?” I had no idea what I was up against. And that’s when I ended up quitting and went full-time into understanding Alzheimer’s disease.

Stephanie, can you please bring Tina up here? She’s very versatile. Some days it’s Henry, sometimes it’s Tina. But I’m going to perform what I call a craniotomy right now. I split my time between neurosurgery and academic research. And I really bring her with me to showcase something that is so beautiful, something that we all have, the human brain.

It is around 3 lb in weight. It’s made up of both water and fat. It is the most vascular rich organ in the entire body. And I’ve spent the last 10 years really looking at this thing here. If you don’t know what this thing here is, it is called a neuron. We have 87 billion neurons in the human brain. That’s what you were born with. 87 billion neurons with around 15,000 connections. Every single neuron communicates with another neuron. And there’s around 15,000 connections.

And guys, it is so beautiful because those connections make up who you are, every thought you have, every action you produce, down to the spouse that you choose is a result of how your brain is shaped, molded, and how it’s functioning. And unfortunately, as we get older, things start to change. They start to change in either good ways or bad ways.

Now, when I speak about Alzheimer’s disease, I want to show you some statistics right now. The global the global Alzheimer’s disease prevalence. 55 million people worldwide have Alzheimer’s disease. That number is going to triple by the year 2050. 2/3 of all Alzheimer’s disease patients are female. 70% of dementia cases are women. Why is it not affecting 70% men?

We used to think it was because we lived longer, but we now know that that’s not the case. It is because the risk factors of Alzheimer’s disease seem to peak in midlife for women. I’m not here to talk to you about hormone replacement therapy. That’s not my job. But I will tell you that there are about 15 pathways to getting this disease. And this isn’t a disease of old age.

You know, when you pick a specialty in medicine or science, you know, people want to choose something sexy. Everyone’s asking me, “Why would you choose a disease of old age?” It turns out that this is not a disease of old age. This is a disease of midlife. Alzheimer’s disease starts in your 30s. I’m in my 30s. It’s starting right now. And I tell you, if I scanned all of the brains in here, I would tell you that half of you probably have mild cognitive impairment, and you don’t even know that yet.