Gero Center premiered the third version of "GeroTalks" with a talk about inequality in Alzheimer's
05-28-2021
05-28-2021
This Thursday 27th began a new edition of that cycle of conferences organized by the Geroscience Center for Brain Health and Metabolism, which brings together researchers from the U. Mayor and the U. de Chile. Thus, the first was carried out by María Carillo, director of the Alzheimer's Association in the United States, who provided revealing data, such as that in 2050 the cost of caring for these patients will reach US $ 1.1 billion in that country. Check the schedule HERE
Alzheimer's affects 50 million people in the world and so far it has not been controlled. In fact, this figure is expected to reach 82 million in 2030 and 120 million in 2050. With this issue as the central focus, the scientific director of the United States Alzheimer's Association, María Carillo, began the third version of the Gero Talk 2021 talk cycle.
The initiative is organized by GERO, a project of the Priority Areas Fund of Chile, which in 2016 created this Geroscience Center for Brain Health and Metabolism, which brings together researchers from the Mayor University, through the Center for Integrative Biology (CIB ), and the University of Chile to study the biological bases of aging and establish genetic, environmental and social variables to understand how this process develops in the Chilean population.
The objective: to generate diagnostic tools and interventions that can reduce the appearance of neurodegenerative diseases associated with age, considering that in Chile, by the year 2050, one in four people will be over 65 years old, which implies changes in the composition age of the population and various social, health and economic challenges.
Thus, this new cycle includes a monthly talk, until October, where international researchers will talk about geriatrics, research in aging and diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Inequality in health
“One in three older adults dies from Alzheimer's or another type of dementia, and this disease kills more people than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined. This is very serious ”, stressed in her conference María Carrillo, who added that“ between 2000 and 2019 heart diseases, thanks to research and care, decreased by 7.3%, while Alzheimer's diseases continue to advance and increased in 145%. We take this message to the federal government and state governments to show the urgency that much more research is needed on Alzheimer's, because it is the research that leads us to the answers we need to decrease deaths from these terrible diseases. "
In her talk, the academic presented data such as that Alzheimer's and other types of dementia will cost the United States of US $ 355 billion; And in 2050, the figure can reach US $ 1.1 trillion. “But these costs are not for very expensive drugs, such as chemotherapies that require other diseases. For us, these millions of dollars are only for care, because they are people who need company 24 hours a day".
María Carrillo also presented at GeroTalk the results of “Race, Ethnicity and Alzheimer's in America, where she showed how discrimination is a barrier to Alzheimer's disease care in the United States, and how this could be extrapolated in Chile. The data was revealing: more than 6 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's, and deaths from it, and from dementia, increased by 19% during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Felipe Court, director of the CIB of the Mayor University and member of GERO, says that “one of the most interesting and relevant aspects of María Carrillo's talk was to recognize how the Alzheimer's Association is facing the problem of inequality in access health, especially in the case of dementias. This is something that we also see here in Chile, where the socioeconomic level is associated not only with a greater probability of developing Alzheimer's or dementia, but also with poorer access to the health system, and less possibility of having professional caregivers ".
Every month, until October, GeroTalks will present a leading researcher related to geriatrics, and Felipe Court recommends the talk by Ignacio Matta, "who is conducting the largest study of Parkinson's in the Latin population, including that of South America, Central America and the United States." says the director of the Center for Integrative Biology.
To connect to the talks and learn more about the GeroTalks 2021 cycle, enter this LINK
