MCI in the News

MCI Must be Counterattacked Early: New Video

October 14, 2020

The brain degeneration of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) may be halted or even reversed if it is attacked promptly at its initial “mild cognitive impairment” (MCI) stage, maintains a new video released by The narrator is its CEO Leslie Norins, MD, PhD.

The 20-minute film presents a military analogy: it is easier to defeat invaders at their beach landing than to wait until they move inland and construct resistant bunkers. In this scenario, the initial process of MCI’s cognition loss is likened to “a beach landing of enemies,” while the “inland dug-in bunkers” are represented by the brain damage, amyloid plaques, and tau tangles of subsequent AD.

Dr. Norins says it is common sense that a destructive process like MCI should be “nipped in the bud,” when it is possibly reversible, before it progresses to the widespread wreckage seen in brains from AD victims. However, he points out that most of the over 200 drug trials so far have studied patients deep into AD. Few if any compounds or tactics tested have focused on patients with early MCI.

Despite this situation, Dr. Norins says numerous studies hint or show that many substances and activities might bolster cognition at the MCI stage.

Why haven’t these promising cognition findings become widely tried? He blames two factors: (1) The focus on amyloid in late AD has gobbled up most of the AD research monies available, and (2) AD advocacy “propaganda” has had a soporific effect, convincing patients and their caregivers that those afflicted with AD are “living with it.” This is medically soft-pedaling it, Dr. Norins says, because every day a little more brain degeneration is occurring in them. So, he says, it is more honest and accurate to say “All AD patients are presently on Death Row, awaiting execution.” He believes once this reality sinks in, public activism and agitation will demand a faster cure for MCI and AD, as happened with AIDS-HIV and COVID 19.