Fact or Fiction? The jubilation of aging by Isabel Allende

What I love about this TED talk among the noise of aging --avoided if we buy the right cream, oil, or tincture--is inevitability. There is grace and beauty as we age. Many are denied the passage of aging in our youth-focused society. Marketing and branding our fear is loathsome and detracts from scientific advancement in the face of true pathology. 

The real science of plasticity and the neuroscience of the normal aging brain is hidden behind commercialization and a rush for blockbuster solutions. Lifelong determinants of brain health won't hold much of a financial promise at the point of care if what we are truly managing is a diffuse clinical syndrome such as Alzheimer's Disease. The hubris of false promises contained in a single drug intervention to ameliorate disease distorts the potential for advancement.

Aging is inevitable. If you are fortunate enough to be reading these words you my friend are indeed aging. Research emerges to intervene with our superficial vanity and even deeper into the "pathology" of aging. My focus here is brain health and how recent advances seem to misrepresent or over promise what we can glean from evolving science. Brain aging and normal senescence are yielding to promises of medicalized space for intervention.

I stumbled upon a blog post about the branding problem of Alzheimer's Disease. The source of the branding problem is my point of difference:

Research spending is also vastly disproportionate to the number of people living with dementia and the nearly $200 billion annual cost of providing them with care. If nothing changes, the price tag will balloon to $1 trillion annually by 2050, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. According to leading advocacy organizations such as the Alzheimer’s Association, the reason for such disparity in funding is because the public has not been outraged or scared enough to demand a bigger investment.

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So does this subliminally or not so subliminally suggest that what is lacking is more fear? This may explain my biggest aggravation with my science-minded colleagues. Every week there are promising headlines that are intentionally sensationalized to give the impression that great strides are being made in finding a cure. Here is a recent example...
 
MORE EVIDENCE LINKS ALZHEIMER’S AND DIABETES

Why didn't the journalist add the qualifier "In small groups of young mice"? Or that one of the scientists David M. Holtzman cofounded and is on the scientific advisory board of C2N Diagnostics AND consults for Genentech, AstraZeneca, Neurophage, and Eli Lilly? The true potential clinical value of the research is buried. The ability to link diet and biochemical processes as risk factors for what is primarily a disease of the elderly again points toward lifestyle preventative behavior as a key driver in shifting billion dollar costs at the point of care... 

Dementia and Alzheimer’s are arguably the most loathed and feared of all conditions related to aging. Psychologically, few things are more terrifying than losing your mind (or watching, helplessly, as a loved one loses his/her mind). Caring for someone with dementia is extraordinarily difficult and draining. And of course, it’s fatal and has no cure or treatment (and no evidence whatsoever that either is imminent). It’s not a pretty picture. But what does branding have to do with it?

Branding has everything to do with it when you are selling to the US market...hopefully we will begin to ask the questions and dig a little deeper. There is good science being done every day--lets work together to find it!

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