The Fight Against Alzheimer’s Disease

0:00As a top-performing advisor, you demand top-performing funds. That's why Fidelity's 1 ,000 experienced research professionals combine deep insights and advanced analytics to deliver consistent outcomes for clients across market cycles. Explore 300-plus Morningstar-rated 4 - and 5-star funds at i.fidelity.com slash top funds. Across all fund share classes of Fidelity, Fidelity Advisor Shares, and Fidelity ETFs as of 6-15-2026, past performance is no guarantee of future results.

0:30Fanny Elahi, MD, PhD:When you're running a business, the best days are the ones where priorities stay on track. For midsize and large companies, that isn't always easy. Risk can touch multiple parts of an organization at the same time, often in ways that aren't immediately obvious. It might involve property, liability, or cyber. It could stem from regulatory requirements or challenges tied to a specific industry or the scale of an operation. At that level, managing risk becomes an ongoing discipline, not a one-time decision. At The Hartford, the focus is on helping businesses manage risk before it turns into something more disruptive.

1:04Fanny Elahi, MD, PhD:That means working with companies to identify where they're exposed, decide what matters most, and put practical standards in place so risk is managed as part of day-to-day operations. And when losses do happen, The Hartford can pair that risk-control work with insurance coverage grounded in underwriting, risk engineering, and claims experience developed over time. Learn more at thehartford.com slash risk mitigation.

1:54Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business. It's the card that gives back all you put in. Learn more at chase.com forward slash reserve business. Chase for Business. Make more of what's yours. Accounts subject to credit approval. Restrictions and limitations apply. Cards are issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A., member FDIC. Wise is the smart way to manage the currencies you need around the globe. When you send money abroad using your bank, you could get hit with hidden fees and exchange rate markups. There's a better way. Try Wise. Wise uses the exchange rate you'd usually find on Google, with no unwelcome surprises.

2:27Plus, most transfers happen in under 20 seconds, which means your money arrives in less time than you've been listening to me. It's simple and free to sign up when you download the Wise app. Be smart, get wise. T's and C's apply.

2:44Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts, radio, news. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio. Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported out on how researchers have uncovered how the body's own immune system may be driving the progression of ALS, a breakthrough that could reshape treatment of the fatal disease. But what's key in a big, broader way, the findings could lead to therapies that target the immune system and may have implications for the treatment of other neurodegenerative diseases. is, and that includes things like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

3:20So let's get to our weekly business week women's health segment. We focus on key issues in developing technologies impacting the present and future of women's health around the world. Our focus today is on Alzheimer's, which affects over 7 million Americans today. By 2050, that number is projected to rise to nearly 13 million, according to the Alzheimer's Association. With us is Dr. Fannie Alahi. She's associate professor of neurology and neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and she joins us right here in New York City. Dr. Lahi, thank you so much for being with us. I am curious when it comes to neurological problems, what are the difference in what affects women versus men?

4:00It's a pleasure to join you. The short answer to that is that we know the statistics of what are the diseases that afflict women at a higher prevalence than men, and one of them is Alzheimer's disease. But to say that we, it would not be correct to say that we understand the why. And I think this is exactly why we need to be doing research, because getting the answer to why are women's brains more vulnerable to Alzheimer's disease and other kinds of neurodegenerative disorders may hold the key to understanding how these diseases strike the vulnerable brain. And so that knowledge will definitely help women.

4:44But I think beyond that would help us understand what are the key factors that make the aging brains vulnerable to Alzheimer's disease. At this point, do we know what do we know? What are the clues or what are the hypotheses that medical professionals have established? A central hypothesis that we and others are following is that in women's lives, there is a huge physiological transition in midlife due to menopause. That shift in hormones that the brain and other organs see is unique to women. It happens in men, but at a much later stage in their life. And so what we are doing at Mount Sinai is to specifically query the impact that lower levels of estrogen may have on the cells that form the vasculature of the brain, the protective barriers of the brain, and other cells within the brain.

5:52So is a fix, an easy fix, just keeping the hormone levels higher? And I know that there are consequences to doing that potentially. Like, how do we think about or how do you guys think about R &D and and what can be done to help women since they are certainly it sounds like more vulnerable as a result when it comes to Alzheimer's? Absolutely. We certainly hope that for those who can get hormone replacement therapy, that may diminish their risk to a certain extent. But the question is, when do those hormones need to be started? And we think it needs to be perimenopause. You cannot wait too long before starting them.

6:31The second question is, how long do you keep those hormones? As you alluded to it, those hormones also increase the risk of other things such as cancers. And those risks increase as women age. So how long do you keep someone on hormones in order to decrease their risk for Alzheimer's disease, which is a late life phenomenon. And then the third question is for the many women who actually cannot be on those hormones. What can we discover about what those hormones do and just go ahead and develop drugs and interventions that activate or deactivate those pathways? What about genetic components? If somebody else in the family has had Alzheimer's, that trait being passed down, Does that happen?

7:21That's an excellent question. And in fact, one of the most prevalent genetic risk factors for Alzheimer's disease, the APOE4 allele, we think interacts with hormones in exerting its effect on Alzheimer's disease. Now, the question of heritability of Alzheimer's goes beyond just APOE4. And that in of itself is a really big area of research. There are other components of the disease, such as metabolism and mitochondria that we inherit from the maternal side, for instance, that could be contributing to this heritability. But even beyond that, there are aspects of our ancestry that continue within us in forms that we currently don't fully grasp.

8:15And I hope we will understand in the future to, again, contribute to better therapeutic developments. So talk to us a little bit about you've done a lot of work when it comes to blood biomarkers. Why might this be important here? blood biomarkers are very exciting because similar to other disorders such as cardiovascular disease cancer kidney liver disease you really want to detect disease before individuals have prominent symptoms that bring them to the medical attention and in the case of alzheimer's and other kinds of neurodegenerative disorders those are cognitive impairment and ultimately dementia at the point that someone has very significant cognitive changes, we think we could potentially slow down disease progression.

9:02But to say that we can stall it or have game-changing treatments completely change someone's brain trajectory would be not realistic. So these blood biomarkers can detect risk of future symptoms with increasingly better predictive ability. One thing that I should mention is that we don't think that the pathologies that eventually lead to dementia start at the time that symptoms present. They really start decades before. And these blood biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease are detecting that. My lab works on expanding that panel because right now we are detecting only a few aspects of the disease.

9:50We think a key component of Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases are the changes that happen to the blood vessels of the brain. And at the moment, we have no biomarkers that detect vascular pathologies with great precision. Dr. Lahi, we just have about 30 seconds left. Are you optimistic that during your career, we will see a major breakthrough in either treatment or prevention of Alzheimer's? Absolutely. I'm going to go further in saying that I hope that it's not at the end of my career. I have great hope for the decade that is to come. We already have two FDA approved treatments that slow down disease progression and many other game changing treatments are in the pipeline.

10:35Well, we so appreciate getting a chance to talk to you and you really like laying it out so clearly. specifically. Dr. Fannie Alahi, she's Associate Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

10:52Advisors, the best way to outperform client expectations is to choose funds and ETFs that outperform the market. Fidelity helps power long-term growth in client portfolios with 300 plus Morningstar rated four and five star funds, including active ETFs. Discover what sets Fidelity apart when it comes to performance at i.fidelity.com slash top funds. Across all fund share classes of Fidelity, Fidelity Advisor Shares, and Fidelity ETS as of 6-15-2026, past performance is no guarantee of future results.

11:22Fanny Elahi, MD, PhD:Support for the show comes from public.com. If you're actively involved in your portfolio, you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions, buying the dip, manually sweeping idle cash, putting on a hedge. On public, you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. Just describe what you want to do in plain English. Like, if the VIX hits 25, buy a put option on the S &P 500. Or, if my cash balance goes above$20 ,000, move the excess into my direct index. You approve of the workflow and your agent handles the rest. Monitoring the market, watching for your conditions, and executing your strategies exactly as defined.

12:00Fanny Elahi, MD, PhD:An investing platform driven by your intent, not just your clicks. You can also get full read and write access to your account via the public API. Go to public.com slash market and fund your account in five minutes or less. That's public.com slash market. Paid for by Public Investing. Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors, LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures. When you own your own business, you own every decision. Now own the card that rewards you for it. The Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business card brings the best Sapphire Reserve benefits to business owners who expect hardworking rewards.

12:44Designed to meet the needs of business owners at scale, this pay-in-full card elevates your travel experience and offers premium benefits and value toward business services that will take your business to the next level. Fuel your business and maximize rewards with 8x points on all purchases through Chase Travel, 3x points on social media and search engine advertising, annual partnership credits, and more. Make every journey more rewarding with a$300 annual travel credit and access to a network of airport lounges, whether you're looking for pre-flight productivity or time to rest and recharge.

13:18Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business. It's the card that gives back all you put in. Learn more at chase.com forward slash reserve business. Chase for Business. Make more of what's yours. Accounts subject to credit approval. Restrictions and limitations apply. Cards are issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A., member FDIC. Let's talk about healthcare for a second. It doesn't always work the way people expect it to. If you've ever waited on a prescription refill or had a hard time getting the care you needed, you know the feeling. The system should just work better for everyone. That's exactly what the people at Optum are trying to do every day.

13:53They're a healthcare company linking patient care and pharmacy services and using data and technology to drive the whole system so care is connected, not complicated, for patients and providers. Things like making it easier to get care that looks at the whole person, from primary care doctors to mental health support and even in-home care, and then using technology to make sure they all work together. Technology designed to help doctors spend less time on busy work and more time with their patients. And those prescriptions? Optum is working to bring costs down, save patients money, and make it easier to get refills.

14:27Little by little, Optum is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Head to business.optum.com to see how. Healthcare doesn't always work great. If you've ever waited on a refill or couldn't schedule an appointment, you get it. That's the kind of stuff Optum is changing. They're using data and technology to integrate patient care, pharmacy, and everything else. So healthcare is connected, not complicated. What's that look like? Cheaper prescriptions that are easier to get and care that looks at the whole person how you need it. Optum is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone.

15:03Learn more at business.optum.com. These days, it seems like AI agents are just about everywhere you turn, every field and every function. But without identity, you can't trust they'll serve your business instead of jeopardizing it. Fortunately, Okta helps you get identity right by securing your AI agent's identities, giving you a single layer of control, a single standard of trust. So whether an AI agent supports a single user or your entire enterprise, with Okta, you'll turn risk into opportunity. Secure every agent. Secure any agent. Okta secures AI. Wise is the smart way to manage the currencies you need around the globe.

15:40When you send money abroad using your bank, you could get hit with hidden fees and exchange rate markups. There's a better way. Try Wise. Wise uses the exchange rate you'd usually find on Google with no unwelcome surprises. Plus, most transfers happen in under 20 seconds, which means your money arrives in less time than you've been listening to me. It's simple and free to sign up when you download the Wise app. Be smart. Get wise.

16:04Fanny Elahi, MD, PhD:T's and C's apply. When you're running a business, the best days are the ones where priorities stay on track. For midsize and large companies, risk can affect multiple parts of the organization at once. from property and liability to cyber and regulatory challenges. At that level, managing risk becomes an ongoing discipline. At the Hartford, the focus is on helping businesses manage risk before it turns into something more disruptive. And when losses do happen, that work is paired with insurance coverage shaped by years of underwriting, risk engineering, and claims experience. Learn more at thehartford.com slash risk mitigation.

16:41Fanny Elahi, MD, PhD:Policies provided by Hartford Fire Insurance Company and its property and casualty affiliates, Hartford, Connecticut.