Discovery was published in a scientific study and involves a method that interrupted and in other cases began to reverse cognitive decline in many people who already have Alzheimer’s disease
Fighting Alzheimer’s early stages with intensive lifestyle changes works, he concludes Study
by Sandee LaMotteCNN
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As his memory was gone by Alzheimer’s disease at the end of his 50 years, Tammy Maida began to lose control of her life. The keys of the car, the glasses and the bag disappeared several times a day. The main characters of the novels he was reading were forgotten. The purchases were in the garage. Keeping family business accounting books has become impossible.
“Honestly, I thought it was going crazy – and the fear of madness was scary,” Maida said to CNN’s chief doctor Sanjay Gupta in the 2024 CNN documentary “The Last Alzheimer’s Patient” (the latest patient with Alzheimer).
After 20 weeks in a random clinical trial conceived to dramatically change your diet, exercise, stress levels and social interactions, Maida cognition has improved. He managed to read and remember novels and balance again – and correctly – sheets of calculation. An analysis of blood even revealed that amyloid levels, a feature of Alzheimer’s disease, were decreasing in their brain, according to a study published in June 2024.
“I’m coming back. It was very good – as I was before I was diagnosed with the disease,” Maida, now 68, told a study researcher. “An older but better version of me.”
Maida’s cognition showed additional improvement after she has completed a total of 40 weeks of intensive lifestyle changes, says lead researcher Dean Ornish, a clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and creator of the Ornish diet and the lifestyle medicine program.
Ornish recently presented an update of the study – did so during the International Conference of the 2025 Alzheimer Association in Toronto.
Although not all 26 participants in the intervention group benefited, 46% had improvements in three of the four standardized tests, including one that measures changes in memory, judgment and problem solving, as well as the ability to function at home, practice hobbies and take care of personal hygiene.
“On the other hand, 37.5% of people did not have cognitive decline during these 40 weeks,” says Ornish. “Thus, more than 83% of patients improved or maintained their cognition during the five -month program.”
New discoveries have reflected other lifestyle interventions studies, including the recent Pointer study, the largest clinical trial in the United States to test moderate lifestyle interventions over two years in people who are at risk but do not yet have Alzheimer’s disease.
“Our study complements these findings by showing, for the first time, that more intense lifestyle changes can often interrupt or even start reversing cognitive decline in many people who already have Alzheimer’s disease – and these improvements usually continue for a longer period,” Ornish tells CNN.
And unlike the drugs available for Alzheimer’s disease, he adds, lifestyle changes have no side effects such as bleeding and swelling in the brain, which can occur with the newest class of medications.
The emblemhealth, a New York -based insurer, recently announced that it will be the first health insurer to cover the Ornish lifestyle medical program for early -stage Alzheimer’s disease patients.
“Feed well, move more, stress less and love more”
The lifestyle intervention created by Ornish-to which he calls “eat well, moving more, stress less and love more”-has been tested before. In 1990, Ornish first demonstrated in a clinical trial that coronary artery disease could often be reversed only with diet, exercises, stress reduction and social support.
The US Medicare and Medicaid Services Centers, or CMS, stated in 2010 that the Ornish program to reverse heart disease was an “intensive heart rehabilitation” and that it would be eligible for refunding by Medicare.
Additional investigations have shown that the same four -part program can reduce blood sugar levels and the risk of heart disease in diabetes patients, reduce prostate cancer cell growth, improve depression and even lengthen telomers, protective covers of chromosomes that wear out with aging.
During Ornish’s intervention, a group of people consumed a rigorous vegan diet, did daily aerobic exercises, committed stress reduction and participated in online support groups. The remaining participants were in a control group and were asked to make no change in their daily habits.
Therapists conducted one -hour group sessions three times a week, in which participants were encouraged to share their feelings and ask for support. Meditation, deep breathing, yoga and other ways to reduce stress occupied another hour a day. The program also encouraged participants to prioritize good quality sleep.
Supplements were provided to all participants in the intervention group, including a daily multivitamin, omega-3 fatty acids with curcumin, coenzyme Q10, vitamin C and B12, magnesium, a probiotic and mushroom Lion’s Mane.
In addition to the online strength training conducted by a fitness coach, participants attended one -hour video classes on vegan nutrition taught by a nutritionist. Then, to ensure that the Vegan diet was followed, all meals and snacks of participants and their partners were delivered to their houses.
Complex carbohydrates found in whole grains, vegetables, fruits, tofu, walnuts and seeds made up most of the diet. Sugar, alcohol and refined carbohydrates found in processed and ultra -processed foods were prohibited. Although calories were not restricted, proteins and total fat represented only about 18% of daily caloric intake – much less than typical medium -American protein intake, Ornish says.
Working harder
People in the intervention group who have struggled more to change their lifestyle have had the greatest improvement in their cognition, explains Ornish, founder and president of the Preventive Medical Research Institute, a non -profit organization, and co -author of “Undo It Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Dissees” (as simple life -style changes can reverse most diseases. chronicles).
“There was a statistically significant dose-response relationship between the degree of adherence to our lifestyle changes and the degree of improvement we observed in cognition measures,” says Ornish.
The 25 people in the 20 -week original control group of the study – who did not receive the intervention – presented an even greater cognitive decline during the program. They were later allowed to participate in the intervention for 40 weeks and significantly improved their cognitive scores during this period, Ornish reveals.
All of this makes sense, says the senior co -author of the study Rudy Tanzi, Alzheimer’s researcher and a teacher of neurology at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
Additional blood tests can offer insights
In the 2024 study, a blood test called plasma Aβ42/40 showed a significant improvement in the original intervention group. The Aβ42/40 measures the level of amyloid in the blood, a key symptom of Alzheimer’s disease.
However, tests that measure the amyloid in different ways showed no improvement, CNN told Suzanne Schindler, an associate professor of neurology at the University of Washington School of Medicine in St. Louis, specializing in blood biomarkers.
There was no significant change in an amyloid test called P-TAU 181, considered a higher measure of Alzheimer’s risk, said Schindler, who did not participate in the study. There was also no change in glial fibrillar acid protein, or GFAP, another blood biomarker that appears to be reasonably well correlated with Alzheimer’s disease.
“If one of these markers improves, we usually see all of them get better. So the fact that it has not happened makes me wonder if this effect is real,” said Schindler. “If they repeated the study with a much longer population for a longer period, perhaps more changes could be observed.”
However, throughout the full 40 -week program, several people from the intervention group continued to improve their Aβ42/40 scores, according to the study update.
“Changes in amyloid-measures such as the Aβ42/40 ratio in plasma-occur before changes in TAU markers, such as P-Tau 218, so it is not surprising after just 40 weeks,” says Ornish.
For Ornish, who saw members of his family to die of Alzheimer’s disease, the results of the study are important for a fundamental reason: hope.
“Many times, when people receive a diagnosis of dementia or Alzheimer’s, doctors tell them that there is no future, ‘will only get worse, put their affairs in order.’ It is horrible news and almost becomes a self-realizable prophecy,” says Ornish.
“Our new discoveries have empowered patients with Alzheimer’s disease in an early stage with the knowledge that if they do and maintain these lifestyle changes, there is a reasonably good chance that they can slow the progression of the disease and often even improve it,” he says.
“Our study needs to be replicated with larger and more diverse groups of patients to make it more widespread,” said Ornish. “But the findings we report today are giving many people a new hope and new options – and the only side effects are good.”
