The Longevity Podcast: Alzheimer's and Brain Health Research

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How do clinicians tell mild dementia from moderate dementia? This study tested the Functional Activities Questionnaire, an informant-based checklist of everyday tasks, in more than 34,000 people from the US NACC database and confirmed the results in the ADNI and FTLDNI cohorts. A score of 18 or higher caught 96% of moderate dementia cases, while a cut-off of 23 traded a little sensitivity for higher specificity. Older age and lower cognitive scores made misclassification more likely.

Source: Ersözlü E, et al., Drawing a line: Differentiating mild from moderate dementia using the functional activities questionnaire, J Prev Alzheimers Dis 2026. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjpad.2026.100630 (CC BY 4.0)

This podcast is created by Ai for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute professional medical or health advice. Please talk to your healthcare team for medical advice. 

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Using amyloid and tau PET scans from two US cohorts, ADNI and the Harvard Aging Brain Study, researchers estimated how long it takes to go from amyloid positivity to tau positivity. That interval varied widely and was shorter in APOE4 carriers, women, and people who became amyloid positive at older ages. A shorter amyloid-to-tau interval predicted earlier symptom onset, pointing to a narrower window for early detection in these groups.

Source: Milà-Alomà M, et al., The time interval from amyloid to tau PET positivity varies by age, sex and APOE-ε4 status, J Prev Alzheimers Dis 2026. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjpad.2026.100622 (CC BY 4.0)

This podcast is created by Ai for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute professional medical or health advice. Please talk to your healthcare team for medical advice. 

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A gut bacterial compound called imidazole propionate (ImP) is linked to Alzheimer's-related brain changes and faster cognitive decline in a large Wisconsin cohort, with mouse and cell studies pointing to barrier and tau pathways.

Researchers measured blood ImP in nearly 1,200 mostly cognitively unimpaired adults, connected ImP-producing gut bacteria to disease markers, and found a genetic signal tied to both ImP levels and Alzheimer's risk. In mice, chronic ImP worsened Alzheimer-like pathology.

This episode is an AI deep-dive overview of the open-access Nature Communications paper. It sticks to what the study reports.

Source: Vemuganti V et al., Gut bacterial metabolite imidazole propionate potentiates Alzheimer's disease pathology. Nat Commun. 2026. doi:10.1038/s41467-026-74744-z (CC BY 4.0)

This podcast is created by Ai for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute professional medical or health advice. Please talk to your healthcare team for medical advice. 

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A Mendelian randomization study of plasma proteins, structural MRI measures, and Alzheimer's disease risk found 12 neuroimaging metrics and 1,633 proteins with causal ties to AD. Brain imaging also mediated about 67% of the link between the immune-related protein PTPRC and Alzheimer's risk across the disease course.

Source: Xu X, et al., Bidirectional causal relationships between plasma proteins, neuroimaging metrics and risk of Alzheimer's disease, J Prev Alzheimers Dis 2026. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjpad.2026.100619 (CC BY 4.0)

This podcast is created by Ai for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute professional medical or health advice. Please talk to your healthcare team for medical advice. 

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A China-wide survey of 1,057 older adults with Alzheimer's or related cognitive impairment found 73.5% had at least one safety incident in the past year, and over a third reported three or more. Medication errors and verbal aggression were the most common, followed by falls and physical aggression. Medication errors and getting lost also sat at the center of how different incidents linked together across care settings and regions.

Source: Zhou Y, et al., Mapping the nature, type, and association network of safety incidents among individuals with cognitive impairment in China: a large-scale multicenter cross-sectional study, J Prev Alzheimers Dis 2026. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjpad.2026.100606 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

This podcast is created by Ai for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute professional medical or health advice. Please talk to your healthcare team for medical advice. 

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A letter in JPAD argues that a reported safety advantage for an anti-amyloid antibody drug, in a European-label subgroup of its phase 3 trial, may largely reflect excluding patients on blood thinners. About one in four people with Alzheimer's take those medicines in real-world data, so the subgroup findings may not apply in everyday practice.

Source: Ijaz A, Mohyudin G, The generalizability gap: anticoagulant exclusions and the "Enhanced Safety" of donanemab in the EU-eligible population, J Prev Alzheimers Dis 2026. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjpad.2026.100628 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

This podcast is created by Ai for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute professional medical or health advice. Please talk to your healthcare team for medical advice. 

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A letter responds to a large review of public dementia risk awareness, arguing that recognizing a risk factor is not the same as knowing what to do about it. The authors urge surveys to measure actionable knowledge, whether risks are personal habits or policy problems, and to separate fear and stigma from true risk perception.

Source: Xie Z, Su J, Liao T, Beyond recognition: Refining the assessment of public knowledge and risk perception in dementia prevention, J Prev Alzheimers Dis 2026. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjpad.2026.100602 (CC BY 4.0)

This podcast is created by Ai for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute professional medical or health advice. Please talk to your healthcare team for medical advice. 

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When Europe approved donanemab and lecanemab, the label was narrower than the trials: early Alzheimer's, APOE ε4 non-carriers or heterozygotes, plus extra exclusions. This editorial walks through why EU-eligible subgroup analyses matter—and how Jessen's TRAILBLAZER-ALZ 2 re-analysis shows benefit and safety still hold (even improve a bit) in the patients clinicians actually treat.

Source: Grimmer T, From trial population to treated population: why EU-eligible subgroup analyses matter for anti-amyloid immunotherapy, J Prev Alzheimers Dis 2026. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjpad.2026.100665 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

This podcast is created by Ai for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute professional medical or health advice. Please talk to your healthcare team for medical advice. 

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How does toxic Tau leave the brain? In this editorial, Vincent Prévot and colleagues spotlight tanycytes—specialized cells lining the third ventricle that shuttle Tau from cerebrospinal fluid into the blood. In Alzheimer's disease these cells are fragmented and their transport genes look dysregulated, which may worsen Tau buildup and open a new therapeutic angle.

Source: Prévot V, Schwaninger M, Nogueiras R, Rasika S, Tau-ing and fro-ing: the tanycytic shuttle in neurodegeneration, J Prev Alzheimers Dis 2026. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjpad.2026.100643 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

This podcast is created by Ai for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute professional medical or health advice. Please talk to your healthcare team for medical advice. 

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Should doctors check brain health the way they check blood pressure? In this editorial, neurologist Gregory Cooper looks at the Brain Health Vital Signs project, which scores patients on 15 lifestyle risk factors for dementia. He explains how the FINGER, US POINTER, and LatAm-FINGERS trials showed that exercise, diet, mental challenge, social connection, and heart health can protect thinking skills, and why clinics now need practical ways to help patients with memory problems follow that advice.

Source: Cooper G, Is it time to make brain health a vital sign?, J Prev Alzheimers Dis 2026. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjpad.2026.100654 (CC BY 4.0)

This podcast is created by Ai for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute professional medical or health advice. Please talk to your healthcare team for medical advice. 

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