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Jun 19
Headshot of Christian Pike with name and title

Professor Christian Pike: Sex differences in Alzheimer’s disease

By Alzheimer's and Dementia, Lifespan Health, Podcast, Research

Christian Pike, Professor of Gerontology at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, discusses his research on sex differences in Alzheimer’s disease and how they can help inform how we might one day prevent and treat it.

 Quotes from this episode

“… Maybe there are situations where the disease, although it’s the same disease, it works a little bit different in men than it does women. And maybe we should consider that in terms of the risk factors for developing it and even how we approach it therapeutically.”

“If you look at clinical trials of Alzheimer’s disease drugs, almost all of them are failed.”

“You can’t control your genetics. At least you can’t yet. But you can control your environment and your lifestyle what we call modifiable risk factors. And so what everybody can do is deal with those now. while we’re, while we’re waiting to get the treatments.”

“There are so many differences between men and women in Alzheimer’s disease. I mean, at the core of it, the disease is very much the same across all people. But then when you begin to break it down into the effects of different risk factors, you begin to see significant differences.”

“And in recent years there’s been a greater emphasis on sex differences in the more we look, the more differences between the male brain and the female brain that we find.”

Learn more about Professor Pike and his work at https://gero.usc.edu/faculty/pike/

May 01
Headshot of Caleb Finch with name and titles

Professor Caleb Finch: Aging, genes and the environment

By Environment, Lifespan Health, Podcast, Research

USC University Professor Caleb Finch is working to understand the relationships between aging, genes and the environment through his studies of ancient mummies and premodern societies.

Quotes from this episode

On how people in ancient times may have had heart disease, currently the world’s leading cause of death

“The oldest individual may be the Tyrolean iceman, Ötzi, as he’s called, who is… 3000 BC, living in the Copper Age. And, both of his carotid arteries were calcified. He died because of a wound from a weapon. But, I think it’s a conclusion that’s fairly robust. Is that they’re, at least in the last 10,000 years in the Neolithic area era, people have had some level of atherosclerosis. Although, it may not have been a major cause of death or disability.”

On the paradox of how the Tsimane population lives with high levels of inflammation but low levels of heart disease, even at older ages

“So, what has turned out to my cardiologist’s surprise, when they actually started imaging the older Tsimane that they have almost no vascular disease, and stroke and heart attack are very rare causes of death. They’re mostly…death is caused by infections, or associated with infections. And, it’s a wonderful mystery as to how the rate of blood vessel aging is so much slower in this population than in North America and Western Europe. So we’re studying this in terms of diet, in terms of stress, in terms of disease load, and, of course, we are looking at their individual genetics. … And, that’s why the Tsimane project is so fascinating because they have lifelong high inflammation, and we all would have predicted and did that they would have had faster aging for these same diseases. But it’s not the case, at least for that heart disease.”

On the surprises that come with scientific research

“So, that’s one of the great pleasures in science. As you put your best thoughts together and let them be challenged, looking at different varieties of lifestyle and it turns up that there are things that seem paradoxical that give deeper insights into basic mechanisms of aging.”

Learn more about Professor Finch and his work at gero.usc.edu/faculty/finch

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