this is your private bank. welcome to "beyond the headlines." our show folks us on alzheimer's disease. they say this disease is a neuro

dimentia disease. it can affect behavior, speech and more. alzheimer's is the sixth leading cause of death in america. almost 2/3 of americans with this disease are women. from 2000 to 2010, the death rate increased by 68%. this year there are more than 5 million living with the disease. that number could triple if a cure is not found by the year 2050. we are going to talk about this with our guests who know first hand about alzheimer's disease. they are delightful peg gleason and her husband ed gleason are in the studio right now. i've been enjoying getting to know you the few minutes before our program started. peg, tell me when you were first diagnosed with alzheimer's what did you think? >> what happened, i had an episode and i went back to see my doctor and find out how that went. she said i have to tell you, you have alzheimer's. i turned and said to her, i

don't want it and walked out of the room. because i knew ed was somewhere in the building. he was at the pharmacy getting something. so i went down there and grabbed him and started crying and telling him i have alzheimer's, which he didn't quite understand what i was saying because i was crying. he said i'll go upstairs with you. he came back up. my doctor was waiting. she knew i would be back. >> it was a shock. ed, how did you take this news? >> yeah. she had no symptoms that i picked up on. she was always very verbal, as you can see. i read up about it. i went to some classes at kaiser. they connected us with support groups which we had a long history with being with support groups. >> that really does make a difference, doesn't it? >> it does. i think i tried to encourage

people to join our support group. men don't want to join the support groups. >> we had pictures of you at a support group. >> yeah. >> tell me the name again. memory? >> the memory cafe was one of them. >> alzheimer's association has support groups. we belong to two now. >> okay. >> it's on a weekly basis. >> does it make a difference in how you react? let me take you back to when you first learned, then you had to tell your family and friends. >> yes. >> it's this awful journey, right? >> right. i was very careful about what friends i would tell, you know? then i found out some of them i was telling were telling other people i hadn't thought to temperaturetell. i thought this is something i have to live with. i did a lot of crying. then i decided now i've got that out, i have to face it. >> you were actually making jokes with it. >> yes. >> i was asking you things and

you said, i forgot. >> i forgot. sometimes people will say to me, oh, you know, i didn't know about something. i wanted them to know. i said that's my job forgetting, not yourself. i decided i could either cry. >> you turned it into a positive. >> i turned it around. one reason i wanted to turn it around was my grandmother who i loved to pieces. she was my favorite person had alzheimer's. what happened in those days was they took her and put her in a room like i guess a hospital type place. that's where she spent the rest of her days. >> now you and ed, you have the support group. tell me about that. you really turned this negative into a positive. >> yes. another funny story is that one time a person told peg that you already told me that before. i thought you weren't paying attention.

yeah. the support groups, memory cafe is where we would get together, the caregivers and their partners get together. the other support group is they separate the caregivers from the partners. both have advantages. and disadvantages. >> it's working for you. >> oh, yes. >> we are journeying with the other people. we give each other support and see how other people are handling it or mishandling it. then you can make a correction. >> we only have about 10 seconds left. i have to tell people at home that you are 80 years young and celebrating your 60th wedding anniversary next year. congratulations. i wish you both good health. >> thank you. thank you for having us. >> all right. >> all right. >> you've been great teachers for us today. we have more to talk about on this show.

coming up, we'll talk with medical experts about the effects of alzheimer's, the stages a person go through and we'll talk about a breakthrough in diet in aging and research.

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welcome back to "beyond the headlines." we've been talking about alzheimer's disease and the fact it affects millions of us. dr. frank longo is professor and chair of the department of stanfo stanfo stanford neurology. >> i focus on seeing patients with dementia. my research team is investigating better, developing better treatment that we very much need for this disorder. >> now, there is no cure for it. >> that's right. unfortunately, there is no cure for it. when we make that diagnosis now, there are medications that can temporarily help. they boost the neuro

transmitters in the brain. can help memory a little bit. unfortunately, they don't stop or slow the progression that occurs. >> does anybody know what causes alzheimer's? >> not precisely. the field is getting hints right now. in the brain there is an accumulation of a substance called amaloid. >> you are able to mark that with pt scans? >> yes. it allows is to see the accumulation in the brain. it is a fragment of a normal protein. when it accumulates, it's toxic to the senaptic sections. >> we have an image of the pet scan if we can put that on the screen. >> sure. >> what are we looking at here? >> the pet scan allows us to detect the amaloid in the brain. yellow and red are signs of accumulation in the brain. the brain with the bright colors is from a patient with

alzheimer's disease. the brain with the cooler blue color is a normal patient that doesn't have abnormal levels of amaloid. >> peg was talking about how her grandmother had alzheimer's. and the treatment for her was just horrible. peg and her husband have found all kinds of support. how much does that play in making life better for those folks who have alzheimer's? >> i think that support plays a big role. our goal is to develop drugs that would reverse this disease and bring people back to normal or better yet, prevent it all together. until we have those drugs, there are many life strategies i think play a role in delaying onset or slowing progression of this degeneration. one is this support system, emotional support. other factors that are probably important are physical exercise, also taking daily walks or any form of exercise. what we call cognitive exercise. using our brains, particularly with something we care about or are passionate about.

finally, a healthy diet and not be overweight. those are all strategies to slow these losses. the bottom line is being engaged deeply with life still. the brain responds to that and maintains connections with that. >> for us the lay people, the situation you are talking about how does that happen? >> that's one of the big mysteries in the field. why does amaloid accumulate in some patients and not others? is there a second protein tao people will read about in the news. that goes through an abnormal shape. that's toxic to the brain, as well. if they are accumulating, we don't know why. genetics might play a little bit of a role. if one has a parent that had alzheimer's, one is at somewhat more risk of coming down with alzheimer's. the genes might influence how our brain clears these amaloid. >> you mentioned diet and exercise are really important.

>> yes. the brain thrives on physical exercise. it's almost as if we are designed to handle walking every day. that's how we evolved. it's interesting that the amaloid accumulation decreased in people who exercised. so exercise is actually, physical exercise is one of our most powerful strategies. a healthy diet. people on a so-called mediterranean diet we read about now also have lower chances of getting dementia. if they get one, it progresses more slowly. >> when talking to peg, she said she didn't have any symptoms, her husband didn't notice symptoms, but her doctor told her she had this disease. how can you tell between alzheimer's and other memory loss? >> very important questions. there are many forms of memory loss. the most common is age-associated memory loss. any of us who are over age 30 have a little bit of age-associated memory loss. that accumulates a little bit as

we get older. we are concerned when the memory loss is significant enough to cause a change in date-to-day function. we look for the cause of that most of those forms of memory loss are caused by alzheimer's. there are a number of other neurologic diseases that can cause memory loss. there are some medical diagnosis that can cause memory loss. for example, low vitamin b-12 levels, low thyroid. we check all our patients for those. they can also cause memory loss. >> the stages of alzheimer's affects people differently. there are certain things that progress. what do you see happening? >> so an initial stage is mild cognitive impairment. this is a stage where the patient notices some memory loss or more often the family notices the memory loss more so than the patient. the day-to-day function is still fairly intact. we call that mild cognitive impairment. in many cases, unfortunately, that can be an early stage of alzheimer's. over the next few years the memory loss can become more

severe and start to affect day-to-day function and be the term dementia which is what more full-blown alzheimer's looks like. >> then you have body changes? >> we have early, moderate and late. those are the three stages we generally work with. towards the late stages, people have more trouble with basic functions of eating, dressing and they need more and more care. particularly hard on the caregivers. >> we are going to put information how to reach your clinic on our website. thank you so much for being here. >> my pleasure. thank you. >> when we come back, we are going to learn about new research on alzheimer's disease and the effects and more about the effect diet may have. stay with us.

welcome back to "beyond the headlines." a recent experiment done by the buck institute show memory loss can be reversed. the buck institute for research on aging located in marin county conducts independent research. patients were instructed to make certain lifestyle changes such as getting more sleep, meditating and taking more vitamin d. they were also instructed to cut out processed food and eat more fish. one patient who asked not to be identified shared her struggle before the experiment. >> i couldn't remember conversations that i had with my kids and my husband. i started having to refer to my calendar all the time. i had to rely on it or i would forget appointments.

my son showed me how to unlock my iphone. by the next day, i could not remember what he had shown me. >> that's scary, isn't it? 90% of the patients showed dramatic improvement. patients who had to stop working were able to return to their jobs. joining me in the studio right now is dr. dale bredisin from the buck institute research on aging. i am so excited about this research. i know so many people who suffer with dementia. this is really positive work. >> thank you very much. we are excited about it, too. it's been many, many years. we are finally beginning to see real improvements for the first time. this is not just about one piece. it's not just about nutrition. it's not just about the way you sleep or your stress level. it's about taking the entire

plasticity balance. it's all the things that contribute to your ability to make and store memories versus reorganizing the memories. there is a beautiful balance that occurs throughout your life. late in life there are times when this balance pulls back. unfortunately, you are better at forgetting than making memories. what we found through our research, it's like if you have a roof with 36 holes in it. now the drug company is trying to tell you we've got a great drug for one hole. that doesn't help you in the long run. the idea here is we need to look at all the different contributors to the memory loss, whether it's alzheimer's-related or not. when you look at all those different contributors, especially early on in the process, you can now patch all the 36 holes instead of just one. and that's when we begin to see the dramatic improvement. typically in these patients it took about three months or so. >> three months, that's it? you have a name. you call it the mem experiment. >> metabolic enhancement for

neuro generation. it's not that you are trying to get to the bottom of normalcy. i tell patients what we want to do is treat you like a competitive athlete. we know whatever you are doing so far is clearly not working for your memory. we want to enhance, we want to optimize things. >> let's talk about the applications for this range far beyond people who are just everyday folks. sports figures. a lot of talk about concussions, dementia in football. >> right. in football as you know, this is becoming more and more common that people do get dementia later on. we don't know whether this program actually would be helpful. we are looking typically at people who were early in alzheimer's or nci which is prealzheimer's. what football players get is a cousin called cte. it does share some of the pathways.

alzheimer's is an analoid-driven and this is concussion-driven. some of those players do get alzheimer's disease. >> i want to talk about nerve cell signal. you touched on it a little bit. >> right. this is critical, we believe. if you look at the way that nerves connect and the way they talk to each other, what we found is again, this is a little bit like if you look at your home. let's say you had contractors that were coming in doing demolition and contractors coming in and doing construction. imagine for 20 years the ones that do the demolition always did extra and the ones who did the construction never showed up. after a while, you would have no house left. this is exactly what's happening with the sinapsis. the talking between the nerves is on the side of the destruction for many years. ultimately, as you can imagine, you are losing those connections over time. when we use this protocol, we are decreasing everything on the

side of the pullback and enhancing everything on the side of the connectivity. >> we want to let people know where to find your work. your recent article is in the impact aging.com. we'll put that on our website. what you are doing is so important. it's something we can relate to. >> thank you very much. >> thank you, doctor. appreciate your time and what you're doing. when we come back, we'll talk about resources and way to help raise money to find a cure. raise money to find a cure. stay ring ring!... progresso! it's ok that your soup tastes like my homemade. it's our slow simmered vegetables and tender white meat chicken. apology accepted. i'm watching you soup people. make it progresso or make it yourself some people think vegetables are boring. but with green giant's delicious seasonings and blends, we just may change their minds. ho ho ho green giant!

welcome back. the alzheimer's association is the largest global nonprofit organization that funds research for alzheimer's disease. the organization raised millions of dollars in the hope of some day finding a cure. the ceo of northern california and nevada chapter bill fisher is with me right now. thank you for being with me today. you've been with them for a long, long time. >> my hair was dark once upon a

time. >> i want to start out with the california supreme court ruled caregivers cannot sue alzheimer's patients for injuries they might suffer because of the physically aggressive nature of the disease. that is probably disturbing for some caregivers. >> yeah. in this instance they are talking about professional caregivers primarily. it's a very difficult issue. people with alzheimer's disease, and one thing we say you've got one person with alzheimer's, you've met one person with alzheimer's. people will decline. some people are agitated. anxious and difficult and they can demonstrate behaviors that are challenging. not everyone will. for families to try to find professionals who can manage this condition well is a challenge. there are lots of resources out there. it is difficult. >> how can they stay safe? the caregivers? >> california legislature in

this last session passed a bill requiring more dementia-specific training for residential care settings, which was a bill we absolutely supported. because there's a lot of difference in how you manage these behaviors. tremendous amount is known about this. but if you don't know and you try to treat this person the way you or i might treat one another, reason with me, tell me no, might not work. >> okay. i want to talk about the alzheimer's association. you have to have -- you have a lot of fund raisers. i see signs in san francisco all the time. how do people get involved? >> lots waifs. we use literally hundreds and hundreds of volunteers to do all kinds of activities. from leading support groups and public speaking to stuffing envelopes, manning committees, staffing, all kinds of work. you can obviously be a donor to the association. you mentor with the largest private nonprofit funders of alzheimer's research. we help families for this

journey they were unprepared. that's our work. sign up and be an advocate. we talk about public policy. we lead this movement because we believe in a different future for our kids and grandkids. alzheimer's disease does not get nearly attention. the president asked for $6 billion for ebola. very few of your viewers are at risk for developing ebola, they are all at risk for developing alzheimer's disease. all you have to have is a brain to be at risk. >> of course. >> and to quote a researcher we funded at berkeley, to avoid alzheimer's choose your parents well and don't live too long. the principle risk factors are age and genetics. >> so it is inherited. >> it has a genetic aspect. it doesn't mean because you had a relative with it you will get it. keep in mind when you get it makes a difference. if you wither going to get it at 90, but hit at a bus by 85, we

didn't see it. my father had it so i know i have an increased risk of getting it. i might not. likewise, people who say no one in my family had it doesn't mean they won't get it. that's the point. all you need is a brain to be at risk for alzheimer's disease. >> i want to talk about your help line. >> 24/7 we are there for families with trained professionals. families get on this journey. they weren't prepared for it. it changes on an ongoing basis. people need help and support and we are there 24/7. people can call us and link to other community resources, day programs, in-home care. >> people have to get over the emotional aspect of it and really just deal with it. >> pass the stigma. there is a tremendous stigma, yeah. >> thank you so much and for the work you're doing. >> thank you. >> for more information about today's program, go to our

website abc7news.com/community. we are on facebook at abc 7 community affairs. i invite to you follow me on twitter. i'm cheryl

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