Can Lifestyle Changes Reverse Alzheimer’s Disease?

My colleagues and I are beginning to conduct the first randomized controlled trial to determine if the progression of early to moderate Alzheimer’s disease can be reversed by a comprehensive lifestyle medicine program, without drugs, devices, or surgery.

We believe that our new study may be the first randomized controlled trial showing that any intervention may reverse the progression of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease, based on pilot data as well as other relevant studies of less-intensive interventions.

If you are interested in finding out more information about enrolling and live in the greater Bay area, please call Colleen Kemp, RN at 415-332-2525 x255.

This clinical research is being conducted via the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute (a 501(c)(3) public foundation) in collaboration with Bruce L. Miller, M.D., who is Director of the UCSF Memory and Aging Center and holds the A.W. and Mary Margaret Clausen Distinguished Professorship in Neurology at UCSF, Dr. Joel Kramer (Professor, Memory & Aging Center), and others. This lifestyle medicine program includes a whole foods plant-based diet; moderate exercise; stress management techniques; and psychosocial support.

For the past 40 years, we have conducted scientific research, including randomized control trials and demonstration projects, proving—for the first time—that the progression of many chronic diseases may be reversible by making these comprehensive lifestyle changes. We used high tech, state-of-the-art scientific measures to prove the power of these low-tech and low-cost interventions. The more diseases we studied, and the more underlying biological mechanisms we measured, the more reasons we had to explain why these simple lifestyle changes have such powerful benefits and how quickly they can occur.

These include reversing coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, early stage prostate cancer, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol levels, and obesity.

The reason that these lifestyle changes are beneficial in reversing so many chronic diseases is that they affect many common underlying biological mechanisms. For example, we found that changing lifestyle changes your genes—over 500 genes in only three months—turning on (upregulating) genes that facilitate health, turning off (downregulating) genes that cause chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, and Alzheimer’s disease and oncogenes that promote prostate cancer, breast cancer, and colon cancer.

We also conducted the first controlled study showing that these lifestyle changes lengthen telomeres, the ends of our chromosomes that regulate aging—reversing aging at a cellular level (in collaboration with Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, who won the Nobel Prize for her pioneering work with telomeres). New research indicates that there may be a causal relationship between shorter telomeres and Alzheimer’s disease.

In all of our studies, we found that the more people changed their lifestyle, the more they improved in every metric we examined—at any age. This is a very empowering message. We are at a state of scientific evidence with respect to Alzheimer’s disease very similar to where we were 40 years ago regarding coronary heart disease. In other words, epidemiological data, anecdotal clinical evidence, and animal studies indicate that Alzheimer’s disease may be reversed by making these comprehensive lifestyle changes, but no one has yet conducted this study.

Other studies have shown that more moderate lifestyle changes may slow the rate of dementia (e.g., the MIND and FINGER studies), but no one has yet conducted a randomized controlled trial to determine if more intensive lifestyle changes may actually reverse the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

Alzheimer’s disease currently affects over five million people at an annual cost of $259 billion in the U.S. By 2050, 16 million people are projected to be affected at an annual cost of $1.1 trillion. As our population ages, this will only increase. There are currently no highly effective drugs for either treating or preventing Alzheimer’s disease.

In this proposed study, 100 patients who have early to moderate Alzheimer’s disease in the San Francisco Bay area will be enrolled and randomly-assigned to one of two groups. Both groups will be tested at baseline using state-of-the-art measures, including MRI, positron emission tomography, cognitive function testing, and biomarkers.

We are also measuring changes in gene expression and proteomics at Dr. David Sinclair’s lab at Harvard (https://genetics.med.harvard.edu/sinclair/people/sinclair.php); changes in the microbiome at Dr. Rob Knight’s lab at UCSD (https://knightlab.ucsd.edu/); and changes in telomere length at Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn’s lab at UCSF. These will provide further insight into the mechanisms by which lifestyle changes may affect the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

The first group will receive this lifestyle medicine program for 20 weeks. The second group will not and will serve as a randomized control group during this phase of the study. Both groups will be re-tested after 20 weeks. Then, the second group will “cross over” and receive this lifestyle medicine program for 20 weeks and the first group will continue the lifestyle change program for 20 additional weeks. After a total of 40 weeks, both groups will be re-tested again and compared. This study has been approved by the UCSF and Western Institutional Review Boards.

All meals will be provided (21 meals/week) during the study along with training in stress management, exercise, and support groups five days/week. There will be no costs to participants for the food, training, or testing.

If this study is successful, it will redefine what is possible, thereby giving many people new hope and new choices. Thank you very much.

Dean Ornish, M.D.
Founder and President, Preventive Medicine Research Institute
Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
dean.ornish@pmri.org