Diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease and breast cancer early and effectively treating pancreatic cancer are three major health challenges. Recently, there have been breakthroughs that may transform the future for anyone contending with those issues, either personally or with someone they know.
• Detecting Alzheimer’s early: There’s now a blood test called SOBA that detects clumps of neuron-damaging amyloid beta protein. That could alert people early on to their increased risk for Alzheimer’s and allow them to take steps to reduce or reverse damage to their cognition. There are 40 steps we’ve written about in these columns and in “The Great Age Reboot” that can slow or reverse brain aging. Now that’s using your noodle.
• Knocking out pancreatic cancer with an mRNA vaccine: In a study of 18 people with pancreatic cancer, researchers developed personalized vaccines against the cancer. The result: After their tumors were removed, half of the participants saw their vaccine help them remain cancer-free during a year of follow-up.
• Breast cancer detection using artificial intelligence: Some good news about how AI can improve medical care comes from a British study of women being screened for breast cancer. Using a system dubbed Mia through two pilot studies and a full rollout of the device, the researchers found that the AI screening flagged 72 women for a second round of examination. Thirty of those women did, in fact, have breast cancer. The bottom line: Mia caught 13% more early-stage and invasive breast cancers than doctors could using traditional ways of reading a mammogram.
The intelligence might be artificial, but the results are very real.
Dr. Mike Roizen is the founder of www.longevityplaybook.com, and Dr. Mehmet Oz is global advisor to www.iHerb.com, the world’s leading online health store. Roizen and Oz are chief wellness officer emeritus at Cleveland Clinic and professor emeritus at Columbia University, respectively. Together they have written 11 New York Times bestsellers (four No. 1’s).
