‘You can perhaps prevent Alzheimer’s,’ Shriver tells Las Vegas forum

Maria Shriver remembers when doctors used to believe that women were more prone to Alzheimer’s disease simply because females, on average, outlive their male counterparts.

Emphasis on used to.

That was seemingly ages ago, Shriver recalled Monday, noting many breakthroughs in recent years in how the disease is understood. Although doctors still do not have a cure for Alzheimer’s, new research — spurred in large part by Shriver’s two-plus decades of advocacy and philanthropy — has begun exploring why the disease impacts the sexes differently.

An estimated 4.6 million of the nearly 7 million Americans currently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s are women, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, and a Jan. 13 report in the scientific journal Nature Medicine projects that dementia cases in the U.S. could potentially double by 2060.

“Way back when I first got involved in Alzheimer’s advocacy, it was believed that it didn’t discriminate against women … that it was a normal part of aging,” Shriver, founder of the nonprofit Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Monday. “All of that has been debunked. This is an ongoing, living, breathing arena of study that will only change because of research.”

Celebrating latest brain health research

During the inaugural Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement Forum, Shriver — an award-winning journalist, the former first lady of California and a descendant of the Kennedy political dynasty — thanked dozens of philanthropists, advocates and researchers, as well as voiced hope in the future fight against the disease. The event celebrated recent women’s brain health research at the Cleveland Clinic’s Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health.

Monday’s forum also marked the fifth anniversary of the 2020 opening of the WAM Prevention and Research Center at the Cleveland Clinic. In its first five years, the institute has seen 457 women across 31 states and has totaled nearly 1,700 patient visits in that span.

Of those, 281 women ranging from 30 to 60 years in age have volunteered to be part of research aimed at understanding how the role stress, estrogen and certain lifestyle changes may affect the risk for Alzheimer’s. Some researchers said Monday that it’s still too early to link those factors directly to Alzheimer’s, but subtle memory changes were observed in women with high cholesterol levels, diabetes or prediabetes, and those reporting chronic high stress, among other factors.

‘You need to come here’

“This center has empowered every single woman who’s come through it, who has also chosen to be a part of research,” Shriver said. “This center has been an educational center, telling people that if you have a brain and you have a history of Alzheimer’s in your family that you need to come here.

“You can perhaps prevent Alzheimer’s,” said Shriver, whose father, Sargeant Shriver, died in 2011 after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2003. “That’s all-new thinking compared to when I first got involved in this issue.”

Dr. Dylan Wint, director of the Ruvo Center, said that given those findings, preventative measures such as adequate diet and exercise appear to be key to ensuring Alzheimer’s never manifests in the first place. He also noted additional research that suggests up to 45 percent of all Alzheimer’s cases might be preventable through healthy lifestyle changes.

“If you want to understand how a disease works, you go to the people who have a greater likelihood of getting the disease,” Wint said. “The ideal in all medical science is to prevent a disease from happening, as opposed to treating it once it happens.”

Avoiding stress, getting more exercise

Regardless of your sex, mitigating stress and getting at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week are among the most important preventative measures to stave off dementia or Alzheimer’s, Wint said. Some research suggests diets rich in whole foods and low in ultra-processed or sugary products can also lower one’s risk for contracting Alzheimer’s, he said.

While many worry there won’t be enough health care professionals to give adequate care to an aging population, Shriver noted that Alzheimer’s disproportionately affects women not only as patients, but as caregivers, too.

Though the future for research looks promising, Shriver said she worries that a potential surge in future dementia rates could augment an already ongoing crisis for access to health care. Combined with a growing life expectancy and a stagnating birth rate, a 2018 estimate from the U.S. Census Bureau said senior citizens will outnumber children by 2034.

“Alzheimer’s affects every family in this country, and that means people are going to have to step up and probably be unpaid caregivers,” Shriver said. “It spends 20 years manifesting before you’re symptomatic. So if you’re 40, pay attention, and if you’re 30 and have parents in their 50s and 60s, talk about it. Work together as a family to prioritize brain health.”

Contact Casey Harrison at charrison@reviewjournal.com. Follow @Casey_Harrison1 on X. or @casey-harrison.bsky.social on Bluesky.