Dr. Majid Fotuhi

But for sure, we know that people who have a sense of purpose in life have better brains, better hearts, better quality of life.

So there are two proteins in a brain that accumulate over time that eventually becomes significant enough to shrink the brain and cause Alzheimer's disease.

You and I have some amyloid in your brain as we're sitting here.

Amyloid has a natural functions in the brain.

And tau is also part of the microtubules, the scaffolding inside neurons.

Neurons have these long axons and tau is a part of the structure of these neurons.

Amyloid levels increase when you get to your 60s and 10 years later or five years later, then tau goes up in parallel to that.

So if amyloid comes first, tau comes second, and these are toxic.

People have early onset Alzheimer's disease, people who develop Alzheimer's disease in their 50s have loads of plaque rectangles, and for them, that's the main source of brain shrinkage that causes Alzheimer's disease.

Older adults, people in their 70s and 80s,

have plaques and tangles and a whole lot of other things.

As we talked about earlier, their brain may have a lot of inflammation.

The blood vessels are mostly clogged and they're stiff.

The rinsing mechanism has not worked.

Inside the brain is kind of dirty actually.

I just don't want to have that brain.

I've seen pictures of, I've actually cut human brains after they pass away and I can look at it.

It even looks bad.

And looking at it, it's gray, dry, shriveled, whereas a healthy 80 year old brain looks fresh, looks vibrant.

The plaques and tangles accumulate in the brain and these things happen too.