Brain Expert: Why Dementia Is Australia's Number One Killer (Project 100)

Well, I think it's a combination of both of those factors, but really, you know, as a, as a doctor, when I was a junior doctor, cardiovascular health was the key focus.

And, you know, there was bypass surgery and people having heart attacks, and it was the number one.

And so understandably, you know, politicians in the community put a focus on trying to understand the condition and treat it.

And I think that's really the gold standard to understand that, you know, heart, heart health and heart disease, you know, you have to look after vascular health, stop smoking, understand the risk factors, cholesterol, blood pressure, um, blood sugar levels.

And it was with that understanding and then some therapies coming through, and I think, you know, everyone would accept that the statin evolution has changed cardiovascular health.

And then our biomarker, so understanding that we can treat against cholesterol, and gradually you started to see cardiovascular deaths going down.

In my field in neurology, stroke was always going up every single year, higher and higher and higher.

And then eventually they did an epidemiological study, and they saw that stroke was dropping.

And the neurologists didn't actually believe it, like, how could this be the case? So they repeated the study, and sure enough, stroke was actually dropping, and it's because we've learnt from the, the vascular health approaches from, you know, cardiologists and heart physicians, and the same thing's happened.

So while that's been happening, and then obviously all the great advances in cancer because of molecular biology, understanding genetics, the human, the whole human genome, all of these things are, you know, getting well understood, and no one has really focused on inverted commas, dementia.

And I suppose as a community, we've often thought that it's an elderly people's condition, and we didn't really care about it.

And, you know, okay, if we end up, you know, a bit demented in a nursing home, that's, that's the cost of living.

But really what's happened alarmingly is it's really come to the fore, and we're seeing there's a huge amounts of dementia and neurodegeneration.

And in fact, this geographical region, the Western Pacific, carries three-fifths, so 60% of the world burden.

But-

Yeah.

And it's gonna be a massive cost.

We, you know-

Why do you believe-

... again, out the budget.

What is it?

Well, I think it's, it's an unusual sort of racial mix, but we've got, you know, obviously a lot of Asian, uh, populations.

We've got South Pacific Islanders.

Obviously we've got the Anglos from, from Western Europe.

But it's a huge population firstly, and they're prone to vascular, particularly related neuro problems, dementia, vascular dementia in particular.

Well, I think it's a combination of both of those factors, but really, you know, as a, as a doctor, when I was a junior doctor, cardiovascular health was the key focus.

And, you know, there was bypass surgery and people having heart attacks, and it was the number one.

And so understandably, you know, politicians in the community put a focus on trying to understand the condition and treat it.

And I think that's really the gold standard to understand that, you know, heart, heart health and heart disease, you know, you have to look after vascular health, stop smoking, understand the risk factors, cholesterol, blood pressure, um, blood sugar levels.

And it was with that understanding and then some therapies coming through, and I think, you know, everyone would accept that the statin evolution has changed cardiovascular health.

And then our biomarker, so understanding that we can treat against cholesterol, and gradually you started to see cardiovascular deaths going down.

In my field in neurology, stroke was always going up every single year, higher and higher and higher.

And then eventually they did an epidemiological study, and they saw that stroke was dropping.

And the neurologists didn't actually believe it, like, how could this be the case? So they repeated the study, and sure enough, stroke was actually dropping, and it's because we've learnt from the, the vascular health approaches from, you know, cardiologists and heart physicians, and the same thing's happened.

So while that's been happening, and then obviously all the great advances in cancer because of molecular biology, understanding genetics, the human, the whole human genome, all of these things are, you know, getting well understood, and no one has really focused on inverted commas, dementia.

And I suppose as a community, we've often thought that it's an elderly people's condition, and we didn't really care about it.

And, you know, okay, if we end up, you know, a bit demented in a nursing home, that's, that's the cost of living.

But really what's happened alarmingly is it's really come to the fore, and we're seeing there's a huge amounts of dementia and neurodegeneration.

And in fact, this geographical region, the Western Pacific, carries three-fifths, so 60% of the world burden.

But-

Yeah.

And it's gonna be a massive cost.

We, you know-

Why do you believe-

... again, out the budget.

What is it?

Well, I think it's, it's an unusual sort of racial mix, but we've got, you know, obviously a lot of Asian, uh, populations.

We've got South Pacific Islanders.

Obviously we've got the Anglos from, from Western Europe.

But it's a huge population firstly, and they're prone to vascular, particularly related neuro problems, dementia, vascular dementia in particular.