tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight a conversation about the brain and had to keep it working at optimum levels. joins us.b. agus toheimer's is predicted affect 16 million baby boomers are and then a conversation with clark gregg with a new movie, "trust me," a secure go look at how hollywood treats child actors. we're glad you joined us. coming up right now. ♪

>> the california endowment. health happens in neighborhoods. learn more. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: is prevention the best for many diseases? particularly when it comes to

alzheimer's created disease that will affect 16 million baby boomers over the next three decades and one for which there is no cure. --ning me to talk about it joining me to talk about it, dr. david b. agus. good to have you back on the set. when i last saw you you were headed out of here for your annual fundraising event for the work that you do and it made all kinds of national news because of that -- i am trying to find word for it. that massive contribution by mr. ellison of oracle. >> i am glad they are helping fight this disease called cancer. said how up there and much did you raise and i said 4 million and he said he would double it. it is such a privilege that they get it. we spend more on vitamins and supplements than on research.

tavis: what do you make of that that we spend more on vitamins and supplements, that shook me to my core. more than research? onmore potato chips than cancer research. our priorities are wrong. we want a quick fix. a vitamin or supplement is. we spend today, it will pay off tomorrow. research, new drugs, new ways of treatment and new ways of thinking for what will stop the suffering and disease. tavis: why does it feel to me then that cancer is the one disease that gets all of the medical attention, that gets all of the money that is erected toward research. why does it feel that way to me? >> a lot is spent on cancer research and the progress has not been like we hoped. we certainly need to do things better but still a fraction of

every dollar in our country that goes to medical research is minute. it is less than a penny. we need to change tt. we invest today it will pay off tomorrow. we know how massive this baby boom generation is in terms of size. how frightened should we be at the numbers we shared, 16 million in the generation along will be suffering? >> as we can prevent any diseases, we can prevent and delay heart disease. we need to focus so we can prevent and then hopefully treat this. get a load of this experiment. it came out two weeks ago. three of the top medical journals. the original experiment was 1956 where this remarkable woman took their skinnd sewed together and the blood supplies mixed. when the blood of the young mouse went to the old mouse, new

neuron connections and the muscles got stronger in the heart got at her and the young mouse aged. she was able to reverse aging in an old mouse with the blood of young mouse. three separate labs at harvard, ucsf, and stanford did the same thing where they took the proteins from young mouse and turned on stem cells in an old mouse and let new neuron connections happel -- happen and new muscles grow. when i talk about prevention it is out of optimism because of what is in the future. peoplenical trials and -- in people will start at the end of the year. aging it seems reversing is one thing. attacking how this disease works on the brain is another. are they one in the same? >> they are probably connected. glom in thert to brain and back it up. if we turn them back on maybe we

can reconnect the narratives that we are losing. we have to understand the notion of the disease. there is a lot going on in animal models of alzheimer's. you give a mouse alzheimer's and it sits in a corner like this. you drop in a piece of paper and normally it rips it up and makes a nest. the alzheimer's mouse does nothing to the paper. you can give a protein that is fda approved for lymphoma that reverses some of the protein folding issues and two weeks later it is being up the napkin again. there is a lot of hope out there and it is early on in the testing of these drugs but there is hope. that is what we have to focus on prevention and delaying as much as we can because those magic pills are out there. but for all the research, all the money that has been directed toward alzheimer's research, this is promising but why are we at this point?ng >> it is a difficult disease.

the patients themselves cannot be advocates. you cannot march on congress and push for money and it has been difficult and most patients say use my body for not topsy but not my brain. we have not been able to study that mini brains so it has been difficult. there was a study that came out that is profound and what it shows is the large -- every year you delay retirement you reduce alzheimer's by 3%. if you retire at 85 instead of 65 that is a dramatic 60% reduction. you do not use it, you lose it. we need to look at these tidbits of data and start to act on them if we want to make a difference today. everybody who has had the honor of being treated by you likes you not just because your research is so brilliant but i have not had this experience personally, you have a wonderful read side manner. we all want a position that has a good read side manner. risk not just the all-time

patients we have to be concerned about in this baby-boom generation but those persons who are going to have to care for these all-time risk patients which means if you have 16 million people suffering, millions more are taking care of their mothers and fathers and their grandparents. that creates another conversation about how we look out for these people who are now giving care at an age in their life, at a point in their life where they do not expect to be burdened. does that concern you? >> no question. they are the unsung heroes, the caregivers. there is no network or support system. what website can they go to to figure out what to do and how to do it? the aging population is an issue. the a.b. boomers are turning to the late 60's and they are getting all the diseases of aging. it will burden the system.

we need to figure out a way to address it and care at home is fantastic but we got to worry about this caregivers and develop a support network. we have to work on our infrastructure. look what happened at the veterans administration hospital system. ain't good and we need to change that. issue that is such a huge and we are trying to figure that out with whoever the new secretary will be. it is a bigger issue. then one person appointed by obama. i tried to make the point that the more wars to fight, the more veterans you will have coming home and some of these are military excursions we should not have been incurred -- engaged in. the more wars you fight for more veterans you will have coming home. if you have war veterans coming

home with a system that is ill-equipped to handle their needs, this problem will get worse. what is your sense of whether we have a system for veterans or everyday americans that has the capacity to handle what alzheimer's with 60 million patients will do to overlie -- overload that system? >> doctors r incentivize to treat. surgeons get -- doctors are incentivized to treat. to change the structure of health care so we can address it early on where we can make an intervention. the best way to treat any diseases to fit -- prevent it. most people are older in the go to medicare. they go to the veterans and ministrations -- administration because there are free drugs. be like them and get that kind of care rather than what it is now which is an

abomination. and that needs to change. we need to rethink it and design it from the ground up whether it be a voucher system or restructuring totally, incentivizing, developing ways and a support network for them. i am not sure what the real answer is but we need to bring in our think tanks and do it right away. tavis: are you hopeful that the politics that are so connected to the health care debate in this country are ever going to change, do you see the optics changing? , there is ahis sentiment that the optics have been the way they are in part because barack obama has been the president pushing it. the clintons had their own comeuppance when it came to this issue. just trying to get at whether you see any way politically if the optics change so we can have advances that are not always so fraught with partisan politics. >> it does not look like it. there is -- for the last decade

it has been about health care finance. we need to change it to health. health is a 30 year affair and politics is a four-year affair. what politician will say let's spend now to benefit later? it does not happen. our political cycles and health cycles do not mix. somebody needs to change that. to get normative behavior you need leadership and i challenge you to name a health care leader in our country today. the great with -- when the greatest health care leader is the mayor of new york city, i applaud what he did we need real leadership so we can get normative change. i want leaders on health. let me circle back to the brain. >> i am pro-brain. tavis: what most excites you, what makes you most hopeful about what we are learning about

the brain? >> that it is plastic. amazing experiment was done where they designed a video game and the video game had you do two things at once that connected parts of the brain. if someone over 75 did this for 30 hours what happened is they thought better, they function better and it lasted for several years treat we can retrain the brain. it is not just a downhill. it is peal. as you get older, focus on what you're not good at and try to get better and realize that there is hope around the corner. you just need to prevent or delay these diseases because there is hope to reversing the -- hope to reversing. the plasticity of the brain is astounding. tavis: i appreciate this guy. his name is dr. david b. agus. called "a text is short guide to a long life."

i have been digging this every day and i highly recommend it. >> it is a privilege. next, actor clark gregg . stay with us. clark gregg is known as part of the ironman series as well as avengers."he he is the writer and director lessrust me," about the savory aspects of hollywood when it comes to child actors. to protect your job us from that? >> it is a good time to tell you. you are fired. >> we have a contract. >> not

anymore we don't. do you go. >> termination of services? >> philip needs more now. get in the car. >> he did it this way to make you dummy. >> guess what, it worked. >> do not do this. >> what about us? >> it was one drunk night and i wish i had been drunker. >> janceice. >> get away from my car. that allw sad are you your friends came through for you. everyone in hollywood is in this movie. >> and that was the spectacular molly shannon. and felicity. bill was our teacher. amanda pete.

allison janney. nash just showed up and we just got along. tavis: that is nice. you make those phone calls and they come through for you. >> it is the only way that this will happen. tavis: why this project? good answer.ad a i'm afraid i do not. i was writing a bigger piece after my first film about children who were acting like grownups and grown-ups who were acting like children in los angeles that it was about -- it would be an epic that would never have moved out of my computer. there was one of them in particular that fill different. it felt like an unusual mash-up between a showbiz comedy of desperation and a film noir. i realized as i was writing it we live with this story, with

this mythology. not from this particular luger's point of view -- loser's point of view played by me. i grew up watching disney and tv shows. you would see them and you see them if you'd -- a few years later. or inthey were in trouble prison. not all of them but it is part of that and he has something to do with the stakes, the way that people get obsessed with this overnight stardom. and built-in to that idea is there are some people who will small group ofy people and a lot of people who never will. veryat way it felt like a american idea. this kind of part of the american dream that feels like a missed to me. me. myth to tavis: how much of the writing was observational, something you

saw versus something you created? >> that is a very perceptive comment. of all the things i have written, this one kind of -- i did not have to do much research. researchsome specific about the world of child actors because i had not done that but i had some child actors on jobs with me and watched their agents. i know little bit. is is a language i know and i am familiar with and i have been in negotiations that are different. it kind of came pouring out of this strange noir allegory. here, is there a messag is there a take away here or is it pure entertainment? legitimate question. i do not mean for it to have a message. i find that when i try to make my own thing like this it takes on a life of its own. he becomes something that surprises me. i thought i was making this edgy comedy as soon as i started to

crafted. it became something that had a lot of feelings in it. a very emotional journey. --seemed to have a lot of kind of a eric ness. there is some sadness in it about the way these childhoods get lost. that said, it is also kind of trying to kind of not take itself too seriously all the time. tavis: tell me about the agent that you play. >> poor guy. [laughter] who got close for a minute. he was a child actor himself and he almost hit it and did not. and he says later he has been hovering around hunting this place like a ghost train to get back there. he thinks he is going to find the perfect 10-year-old who will take him to the big time. that seems crazy and funny to me. i think he lies more than 25 times in the first five minutes

of the movie. he will get anything to get there and he stumbles on this young girl who is off the bus and they have a connection that israel and you see the other side of it which is -- he loves the whole thing, he loves actors, he loves her more than he is comfortable with. he has a family. he finds himself in a position where he can have everything he has ever dreamed of or take care of her. moviegoers when across the country will go see this, even when they do not necessarily connect to the lives of the child actors in the film, what works for movie goers is to connect to the humanity of the character. the child acting thing as you mentioned is a different kind of animal here in los angeles and new york. tell me the humanity that you want them to connect to in the character. >> it is funny you say that.

people would say it is about kids in show business. you are right. of course it is. i have kind of forgotten. because like so many great stories it is not about the specifics of that world. you kind of set these characters in that world. we all think we have a ringside seat of hollywood. again i feel like we watch the foibles of one after another. a young celebrity not having the right kind of audrey's and it feels like -- boundaries and it feels like a car crash. maybe there is some sizzurp involved. ?avis: did you just say sizzurp that might be the first time that sizzurp was underdone pbs. -- uttered on pbs. i get the sense that you like -- this stuff

enough to go back to do it. doing this periodically alongside the acting. >> i do absolutely. i might have said it last time we were here. you spend a certain time as an actor and you are a session player on somebody else's album. you are bringing your part in trying to influence what it becomes. it is someone else's vision. i came from a theater company in new york started by bill macy and david mamet and myself and others and it was part of the ethos. you are a storyteller. when i get to a moment where i get to kind of compose and it is it exercises muscles. it is not something i really ever dreamed of was to act and direct at the same time. it is not something that i recommend, essentially.

yet there was something about this character and the way that -- stands stand out outside the fence. i had some years like that. i could not give it to someone else. i realize that trying to do both of those things feels just as terrifying as this guys life on this day. tavis: you pulled it off and the tv show is doing well. >> last time i saw you i could not tell you i would do -- have a bad day with "the avengers." tavis: i beg and it -- you gave me nothing. it all worked out. glad to have you any time. for you, the answer may be that you have done it already. when you do a project like this and you for your heart and mind

and soul into it, what is the determining factor for whether or not it has been or is a success for you? >> that is a beautiful question. there is two levels of it. one is you do it because you need to tell the story. i feel like you need to tell the story because you want to connect. you want to give to people what you have been given in some dark movie theaters or what have you where there is just a kind of revelatory experience on the deepest level. that is the sacred thing you want to be part of and if you can do that, it is a success. if that is what i focus on i come out of it feeling like i have got something different to bring to anything else that i do afterwards. tavis: the new project from clark gregg, "trust me." and directs.

that is our show for tonight. thanks for watching and as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with the man behind "think like a holliday. jennifer that is next time. we will see you then. ♪

>> the california endowment. health happens in neighborhoods. learn more. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more.

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