The effects of Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's is a disease that almost consistently or almost exclusively deals with cognition. So it affects the brain and it is a dementing disease. So it robs people of memory, cognitive, executive function, processing speed, et cetera. Parkinson's disease is more of a movement disorder. Doesn't really affect cognition, muscular like. But it affects motor control and movement. And so people with Parkinson's disease have a tremor and have a very difficult time moving. Wow. So they're both neurodegenerative diseases, but they're, they're, they're at different ends of the spectrum. But one, the Parkinson's. It'll affect your body, but you should be sharp still. Most patients with Parkinson's disease still have their cognitive faculties. Right. Whereas Alzheimer's patients do not. What are the causes of both of those, and how can we minimize that? Yeah, I mean, it's hard to say definitively what's causing them. We know more about Alzheimer's disease than Parkinson's disease. So we know, for example, that of all the people with Alzheimer's disease, 1% of them have it because of genes that are programming them to get it. So this is very tragic, but there, you know, there are a handful of genes, three in particular, that make up the majority of these patients who are almost destined to get Alzheimer's disease and tragically, to get it at a very young age. These are people that are getting it in their 50s. So fortunately, that's rare. Again, it's only 1% of cases, but it's 1% too much, and we really don't have any options for these patients. So that's. Once you start getting it, it's hard to reverse. That's right. That's right. So this isn't 1% of people that have this. This is 1% of Alzheimer's cases come with this. Of the other 99% of people who get Alzheimer's disease, a couple things we know. There's a gene called APOE4 that increases risk of Alzheimer's disease. So this is a gene that about 25% of the population has. So at least 25% of the population has one copy of that gene. About 2% of the population has two copies of that gene. Those people are at a much higher risk. The people with one copy are at, you know, about two to three times the risk. And then there are people with no copies that still make up part of the cases. So of all the people with Alzheimer's disease, about 2/3 of them have that gene, the APOE4 gene, 1/3 do not. Even though the two thirds of people who have Alzheimer's with that gene are only representing 25% of the population. So you get a sense of the risk.