Dr. Gregory Poland, Mayo clinic head of vaccine research group Interview

Dr. Gregory Poland speaks with Mendte in the Morning about the best changes you can make to your daily lifestyle to reduce your risk of brain diseases later in life.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's amazing.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
There's a list out with seventeen ways to cut your
risk of stroke, dementia, and depression. You can get rid
of all of them, or at least cut the risk
of it all at once. Let's talk about that with
doctor Gregory Poland later in Vaccines and Infectious Diseases at
the Mayo Clinic and president of the Atriar Research Institute

(00:21):
in New York. Doctor Poland, as always, thank you for
your time. You're going to deal with five of these huh.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Yeah, as you mentioned, Lary, and this is good news.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
These are things that you can take control of to
decrease your risk of stroke by up to sixty percent,
well dementia by forty percent, and later life depression by
thirty five percent.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
And when you look at the big five, the ones
that have the most effect, it's your blood pressure, your
body weight, particularly being obese increases those risks, your blood
sugar to your blood pressure, your sodium intake, and smoking.

(01:06):
They're seventeen risk factors that we can modify. But those
are the Big five, and those are things that everybody
can take control of and improve.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yeah, and they help you with many things. I wouldn't
think it's just those. I mean, you're just healthier overall.
I know that recently the Alzheimer's Association even came out
and started talking about the semaglutide drugs and they're studying
them because it can help fight Alzheimer's. And then I

(01:39):
think I talked to you about it and you said, well,
that's just the weight with the plaque on the brain.
If you lose weight, you get less plaque on the brain.
Is that right.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
It's more than that, it decreases inflammation. These drugs are
appearing to be almost miracle drugs. Leary. I mean, it
is amazingective effect of these drugs. And you know you
mentioned Alzheimer's. The numbers are staggering in the US. About
seven million people have Alzheimer's. That's a forty percent increase

(02:13):
just since twenty fifteen, and by twenty fifty the numbers
are expected to double again to fourteen million. So it
really is important. And as you just pointed out, these
risk factors overlap. It's more than stroke and dementia. It's
also heart disease. It's also mental health, physical activity, et cetera.

(02:35):
These all overlap, and they're just good healthy living strategies.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
I love that you called the semaglutide drugs miracle drugs,
because I agree with you, and I think a lot
of people are out there saying that right now. So
why is it so darn expensive if it's so good
for us?

Speaker 3 (02:52):
Yeah? Maybe that's why.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
The real reason is when new drugs come into the market,
they are the most expensive they ever will be because
the manufacturers have a limited amount of time while they're
on patent and not generic to recoup all the development costs. So,
for example, a vaccine from start to being approved by

(03:19):
the FDA and marketing costs about one billion US dollars.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Yeah, it's a shame though, that it's so expensive right
now because, as you pointed out, it can save lives
this and go ahead.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
Yeah, you're absolutely right, Larry, And you know you begin
to think, well, would an important strategy be for insurance
companies or the government to subsidize the cost of those
because they make they save money on the other end
of it, Right, if you don't have a stroke, if
you don't have a heart attack, if you don't have dementia,

(03:56):
Well that's a lot of savings healthcare. So why not
make those popularly accessible, and you know, as you know,
it's sort of the inverse of what you'd think. People
and a lower economic strata tend to have more risk
factors than people at a higher economic strata. A lot

(04:17):
of reasons for that, but yeah, these are in part
systematic inequities in our system.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Well, that is brilliant and I'm behind you one thousand percent.
That is so smart for insurance companies and for everybody
to push for that. I just hope we get a
couple of politicians behind that, because then maybe it can happen.
But great idea. Doctor Gregory Pohand, leader in vaccines and
infectious Diseases at the Mayo Clinic and president of the
Atria Research Institute in New York, thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
Thank you, Larry, thank you.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
That's was brilliant. I absolutely agree with them. Why hasn't
anybody thought of that. We should be pushing for that.
We should be pushing that for those for the uh
things like ozembic and WILLGOV for the prices to come
down because it absolutely is a miracle drug and it
absolutely saves lives.