Good morning. It's Wednesday, April 15. Welcome to this week's Health & Medicine newsletter. Was this forwarded to you? Sign up here or click here to share with friends. |
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This week, our theme is: "This is your brain." We're specifically exploring what happens when the roughly three-pound command center inside our skulls doesn't function properly. We'll be diving into several categories.
First, we'll take on dementia, which progressively degrades our cognitive abilities and makes it difficult to complete daily tasks. Next, we'll cover Alzheimer's disease—the most common known form of dementia. Finally, we'll dig deep on burnout, exploring how workplace stress can lead to this severe exhaustion—and what can be done about it.
As always, feel free to drop me a line. It's as simple as replying to this message.
—Dina Fine Maron, 1440 Health & Medicine Section Editor |
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Interfering with Daily Life |
Dementia 101
Dementia is not part of healthy aging. It's a severe cognitive impairment that can compromise one's ability to perform daily activities and function independently. No one test definitively diagnoses dementia—instead, a test series, brain scans, and an expert's consideration of the overall pattern of symptoms lead to a formal diagnosis.
Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia, affecting more than half of all dementia patients. There's also vascular dementia, which arises from brain blood flow issues, and frontotemporal dementia, which often manifests in middle age, and is named for the most affected areas of the brain. Lewy body dementia occurs when protein deposits form in nerve cells in the brain.
In 2025, estimates suggest there were at least 5.6 million people living in America with dementia. Though the burden of dementia is often incalculable for individuals and their families, one estimate suggests it costs society $781B in 2025. If dementia-like symptoms are caused by factors such as vitamin deficiencies, medication side effects, liver disease, or infections, then the condition can be treatable or curable. Typically, however, there is no cure for dementia.
Medications and lifestyle choices can help to alleviate dementia symptoms and slow symptom progression. Current research seeks to tease apart the etiologies of dementia and identify new drug treatments and the best ways to support loved ones who act as caregivers. Dementia caregivers often provide unpaid care that may last for years.
Explore everything else we've found on Dementia.
Also, check out ...
> What it feels like to live with dementia. (Watch)
> Learn the differences between mild cognitive impairment and age-associated memory loss. (Watch)
> Brain training game creates long-lasting changes in the brain that may help protect against dementia. (Read)
> Dementia caregiver training programs exist—but they aren't common. (Read) |
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Alzheimer's disease, explained
Alzheimer's disease is a type of dementia—an umbrella term that refers to a collection of symptoms, including memory loss, cognitive impairment, and sudden behavior changes.
More than 55 million people worldwide have dementia; Alzheimer's disease makes up nearly 70% of all cases. Old age is the greatest risk factor in developing Alzheimer's, though genetic components can elevate the risk of developing the disease.
The first case of Alzheimer's disease dates back to the turn of the 20th century when Dr. Alois Alzheimer treated 51-year-old Auguste Deter, who was struggling with sudden memory issues and aggressive, irrational behavior. After Deter's death, Alzheimer examined her brain and found it had a strange collection of molecular pileups. Scientists now know these "pileups" are created by two distinct molecular formations: plaques and tangles, but they're still investigating their potential roles in disease progression.
Explore everything else we've found on Alzheimer's Disease.
Also, check out ...
> Visualize the difference between a healthy brain and one with Alzheimer's. (Read)
> Poor sleep increases the risk of developing Alzheimer's. (Watch)
> Is conventional wisdom about amyloid plaques wrong? (Listen)
> A first-person account of receiving an Alzheimer's diagnosis. (Listen)
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Exhaustion That Just Won't Quit |
What's burnout?
Burnout is a syndrome characterized by extreme mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion, typically prompted by workplace stress. While it's not a medical condition, the World Health Organization defines burnout as an occupational phenomenon in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), which officially went into effect in 2022.
Burnout is a physiological process involving an ancient stress response. When humans experience stress, hormones are released to prepare the body for immediate action, commonly called the "fight-or-flight" response. Chronic stress causes systemic inflammation and brain changes that heighten the body's stress response and impair emotional regulation.
In 2024, around half of all full-time employees polled by the National Alliance on Mental Illness reported experiencing burnout at their jobs. Around a third of all employees ages 18 to 49 had considered quitting their jobs due to workplace stress.
Explore everything else we've found on Burnout.
Also, check out ...
> The term burnout in academia dates back to 1974. (Read)
> Workplace overload has fueled the rising industry of "burnout coach." (Read)
> How burnout creep has spread across various areas of life. (Read)
> Modern workplaces were engineered for efficiency, not work-life balance. (Read)
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Medical Developments Spotlight |
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We love spending time learning about the latest medical breakthroughs and spotlighting research that piques our interest, may influence future research directions, or inform healthcare conversations. Here's what we found this week.
> Sperm gets lost in space—that's bad news for space reproduction
Communications Biology | Hannah E. Lyons, Victoria Nikitaras, et al. A major hurdle for future human reproduction in space may be that sperm have trouble successfully navigating to an egg in microgravity. Australian researchers discovered this after simulating space conditions and studying how sperm moved through a maze that mimics the female reproductive tract. Sperm motility was fine in those conditions, but it still struggled to reach its destination. (Read)
> Fake supplements still helped—even when users knew they were fake
Nautilus | Jake Currie. Psychologists split 90 people aged 65 and older into several groups, telling one group it was taking multivitamins, another that it had sugar pills, and leaving the third as a control group. After a few weeks, the sugar pill group tested very well across a variety of cognitive and physical health tests—even though they knew any salubrious effects were due to the placebo effect. (Read | More on Supplements) |
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"There is this collective delusion that burnout is the price we must pay for success." |
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