Are women more likely to get Alzheimer's? | Maria Shriver

TED Health

TED

Health & Fitness, Fitness, Shoshana Ungerleider, Medicine, How To Be Healthier, Ted Shoshana, Ted Talks Health

4.2 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 1 November 2022

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Does Alzheimer's disease disproportionately affect women? In this episode of TED Health, author and health advocate Maria Shriver joins our host Shoshana in a conversation that delves into the gender-based factors of Alzheimer's, the shift in society's narrative around the disease -- and the importance of voicing your own concerns to your doctor.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Today, I have the honor of welcoming Maria Schreiber to the podcast. You may know Maria as
0:18.2	an Emmy and Peabody award-winning journalist for her work as a special anchor for NBC News.
0:23.8	You may have even read one of her seven New York Times bestselling books. But Maria is
0:28.3	also the founder of the nonprofit, the Women's Alzheimer's Movement. And she's here today to
0:33.1	talk to us about her work with the organization. Welcome Maria. Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here with you.
0:41.0	In 2010, you started the Women's Alzheimer's Movement to redefine the narrative of the disease
0:46.7	as a women's health issue. What drew you to this work? Well, my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's
0:52.5	back in 2003. So that began my odyssey, I think, to understand what was happening in the brain.
1:00.0	How did that happen? Who did it happen to? And those questions led me to
1:06.4	recognizing that more and more women seemed to be impacted by this. And doctors telling me that
1:12.5	it was only because they lived longer. And I didn't think that was the case. And so I partnered
1:17.3	with the Alzheimer's Association. And we reported out to the nation that this disease discriminated
1:24.0	against women two out of three cases belong to women and two thirds of the caregivers were also
1:29.8	women. So this is a women's health disease. If you have it, if you don't have it, if you're a
1:34.9	caregiver, if you're the one impacted. And we wanted to try to understand what is happening
1:41.2	in women's brains and bodies that makes them susceptible. You've recently partnered with the
1:46.7	Cleveland Clinic. And you've been conducting a lot of research to better understand why Alzheimer's
1:51.8	disproportionately impacts women. What are you learning there? We've been funding research for
1:57.5	the last I think 10 years before we partnered with the Cleveland Clinic. We were the preeminent
2:02.5	organization looking at women and Alzheimer's looking at funding research into women's brains.
2:09.1	They saw what we were doing and said we need to get in on that. We need to partner with an
2:14.7	organization that's already looking at Perry menopause, looking at diet that's looking at faith
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from TED, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of TED and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.