Bill Gates reveals 'next phase of Alzheimer's fight' as he shares dad's personal battle

Bill Gates is speaking out about his personal experience with Alzheimer s and his hope for progress in fighting the affection In an essay published this week on his blog at GatesNotes com the Microsoft co-founder and tech billionaire reflected on the difficulty of spending another Father s Day without his dad Bill Gates Sr The elder Gates passed away in at the age of after battling Alzheimer s RATES OF DEMENTIA ARE LOWER IN PEOPLE WHO EAT THIS SPECIFIC DIET RESEARCH SHOWS It was a brutal experience watching my brilliant loving father go downhill and disappear Gates wrote in the blog post In current times motivated by his own experience with the common dementia Gates who serves as chair of the Gates Foundation is committed to working toward a cure for the common dementia which currently affects more than seven million Americans or one in nine people over In his blog Gates expressed optimism about the massive progress being made in the fight against Alzheimer s and other dementias Last year Gates reported he visited Indiana University s School of Medicine in Indianapolis to tour the labs where teams have been researching Alzheimer s biomarkers BILL GATES LIKELY HAD AUTISM AS A CHILD HE REVEALS WASN T WIDELY UNDERSTOOD I also got the opportunity to look under the hood of new automated machines that will soon be running diagnostics around the world he wrote It s an exciting time in a challenging space One of the biggest breakthroughs in Alzheimer s research according to Gates is blood-based diagnostic tests which detect the ratio of amyloid plaques in the brain Amyloid plaques clumps of protein that accumulate in the brain are one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer s I m optimistic that these tests will be a game-changer Gates wrote Last month the U S Food and Drug Administration FDA approved the first blood-based test for patients years and older as Fox News Digital informed at the time Traditionally Gates noted the primary path to Alzheimer s identification was either a PET scan anatomical imaging or spinal tap lumbar puncture which were usually only performed when responses emerged The hope is that blood-based tests could do a better job of catching the illness early decline begins We now know that the affection begins to years before you start to see any signs Gates wrote A simple accurate and easy-to-run blood test might one day make routine screening feasible identifying patients long before they experience cognitive decline he stated Gates commented he is often inquired What is the point of getting diagnosed if I can t do anything about it To that end he expressed his optimism for the future of Alzheimer s treatments noting that two drugs Lecanemab Leqembi and Donanemab Kisunla have gained FDA approval Both have proven to modestly slow down the progression of the complaint but what I m really excited about is their anticipated when paired with an early diagnostic Gates noted He announced he is also hopeful that the blood tests will help speed up the process of enrolling patients in clinical trials for new Alzheimer s drugs To accomplish this Gates is calling for increased funding for research which often comes from federal grants CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR STRENGTH NEWSLETTER This is the moment to spend more money on research not less he wrote also stating that the quest to stop Alzheimer s has never had more momentum There is still a huge amount of work to be done like deepening our understanding of the disorder s pathology and evolving even better diagnostics Gates went on Gates pointed out that when his father had Alzheimer s it was considered a death sentence but that is starting to change I am blown away by how much we have learned about Alzheimer s over the last couple of years he wrote For more Vitality articles visit www foxnews com soundness I cannot help but be filled with a sense of hope when I think of all the progress being made on Alzheimer s even with so a multitude of challenges happening around the world We are closer than ever before to a world where no one has to watch someone they love suffer from this awful syndrome