Ideagen Radio
Ideagen Radio
The Alzheimer's Revolution: Fighting Back Against Brain Disease with Phyllis Ferrell
Phyllis Farrell takes us on an extraordinary journey through her pioneering career in Alzheimer's research and her passionate commitment to transforming how we approach brain health. From her unexpected path starting with an economics degree to eventually leading late-stage Alzheimer's drug development teams at Eli Lilly, Farrell demonstrates how diverse perspectives strengthen our approach to healthcare's most challenging problems.
What makes this conversation truly special is Farrell's ability to balance sobering reality with genuine optimism. She doesn't shy away from the devastating impacts of Alzheimer's—both on patients and the predominantly female caregivers who support them—yet her message is fundamentally hopeful. The groundbreaking revelation that over 40% of dementias are preventable through lifestyle changes shifts our understanding from inevitability to opportunity.
Most powerfully, Farrell dismantles the harmful misconception that cognitive decline is simply part of normal aging. Instead, she offers practical, science-backed strategies anyone can implement today: Mediterranean diet, regular exercise, quality sleep, blood pressure management, limited alcohol, social engagement, and cognitive stimulation. Her introduction of NeuroQuest, an innovative brain health assessment tool, provides a personalized approach to brain health that resonated deeply with HOSA's Future Health Professionals.
Whether you're a healthcare professional, student, or simply someone concerned about brain health for yourself or loved ones, this episode delivers actionable insights alongside a profound message: we can change the trajectory of Alzheimer's disease if we start caring for our brains decades before symptoms appear. As Farrell reminds us, the next generation of healthcare professionals has "the creativity, the grit, and the values" to revolutionize how we approach this challenge—and the time to start is now, not when something goes wrong.
Welcome to the HOSA Future Health Professionals the Future of Health podcast. Today I am honored to have with us Phyllis Farrell, a member of the HOSA 100 International Advisory Council. Phyllis, welcome.
Speaker 2:Hi, george, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Phyllis, you know you've contributed so much to the HOSA 100, and we're so excited to have you on the Future of Health podcast For our global audience of future health professionals. Could you kindly share your journey, including how you entered the healthcare sector and became ultimately involved with the HOSA 100?
Speaker 2:I'd be happy to. George, it's a little bit of a long story because I'm quite a bit older than the most of your HOSA members, but it is kind of a fun story, I think, for people that want to get into the health sector. I actually had an undergrad degree in economics from a liberal arts school by the name of DePaul University in Indiana and I'm a big, big believer in the liberal arts education because it really teaches you how to do critical thinking. And because of that experience with a lot of breadth, I began working for Eli Lilly and Company, a major pharmaceutical firm, right after graduation and I actually started in the business, in finance. But I realized very quickly that I wanted to get closer to patient care and so I moved through the organization and worked on the commercial side of the business so marketing, selling, strategy, business development and I really got a feel for what it meant to work in life sciences. I don't think I could have done that if I hadn't had that liberal arts education because I didn't have a deep science background. So I went back to school and I got a master's degree in business, an MBA, from Stanford. I took a two year sabbatical. It was wonderful to go to the West Coast.
Speaker 2:But then I came back and continued to work for Eli Lilly and Company and continued to work for Eli Lilly and Company and about halfway through my career, so after about 15 years I actually moved over into the medical part of the organization where I took responsibility for leading the late stage Alzheimer's disease drug development and diagnostic development teams.
Speaker 2:So what that means is I all of a sudden had doctors reporting to me and regulatory scientists very early stage research scientists, as well as the team that was getting ready to get drugs to market and had a blast Once again, lots of breadth and so leaning on that liberal arts schooling.
Speaker 2:But by then I had a master's degree and I actually decided to go back and get a doctoral degree. So I finally got my science degree when I was 50 years old and I got a doctorate in public health and that was when I really pivoted in my career health. And that was when I really pivoted in my career. I took early retirement from Lilly and I became an independent consultant in Alzheimer's disease. I got very involved in global health with the World Economic Forum and started a new global health initiative. So I've really had a lot of activity over three decades of career and a lot of breath, but it's been a lot of fun and I highly highly recommend the health sciences, life sciences and health sector to anyone who's looking for a place where they can really do good work while also making a nice income.
Speaker 1:You know that's such an incredible journey, Phyllis, and it's so, you know, obvious that you've made such an incredible impact. And so, as we look at Alzheimer's, the disease itself is a growing global challenge. How do you describe its scope and the impact it's having on so many millions of individuals in your own words?
Speaker 2:Well, honestly, it's a product of our success. It's because of the success that we've had in life science, innovation and medical practice clinical care that people are actually living longer, and they're living longer around the world. So what this means, though, is that people that live when they live longer. We don't want to just live longer, we want to live healthier and happier, and so you see this aging population marching its way across the world, starting in Japan, which is a super aging society, and, honestly, it's going to transform not just our health sectors, but also our finance sectors and our social security sectors, because, all of a sudden, people are living longer. That means there's more years not working than there are working, or we need to find a way to transform the way we work so that we can stay in the working community longer. So it's a product of our success.
Speaker 2:The problem is that the number one risk for Alzheimer's disease is getting older.
Speaker 2:Our brains don't clear out the amyloid plaque like they used to, and, as that amyloid builds up in first monomers and then oligomers, which are these really sticky particles that ultimately create amyloid plaques in the brain, our body just doesn't do a good job as the janitor of cleaning it out.
Speaker 2:So it has a huge impact, not just our government sectors we spend billions and billions of dollars in Medicare every year taking care of people with Alzheimer's disease and their comorbidities but we also have it impacting our families, because even in the United States of America the standard of care for someone with Alzheimer's disease is an unpaid family caregiver. I lived that in my own personal experience with my father, and you know now it's not just adult children that are caring for their parents, grandchildren are. We have kids that are at the college age that are caring for their parents, grandchildren are. We have kids that are at the college age that are having to take on caregiving roles at a time when they really should be focusing on themselves. So it's a devastating impact. But I also think we're on the cusp of some just amazing scientific breakthroughs, both in terms of therapeutics, diagnostics and even some secondary prevention and risk reduction strategies. So it also makes me very, very hopeful for where we are.
Speaker 1:Helpful is such an incredible word to hear from you, Phyllis, based on everything that you're seeing, and so it's health effects. What are the economic and social consequences of this Alzheimer's epidemic?
Speaker 2:Well, as I mentioned, it turns our social security system upside down, no-transcript, our identities, and so you think about where you are used to having your mom make Thanksgiving dinner, for example, or have your father help you with your taxes and these are things that are no longer available to you and, in fact, the role reversal is that you're having to help your mom or your dad, grandmother, grandfather, aunt, uncle through some really challenging times for them and you're losing a piece of them as they lose a piece of their identity as well. Now I would be remiss if this group I didn't talk to about CNAs, certified Nursing Assistants. These folks are angels on earth. These are the individuals that come into our home. They work in hospitals, they make sure that people can stay at home longer.
Speaker 2:These individuals are usually women, and guess who's usually a caregiver for their aunt or uncle or grandmother or mother? It's usually a woman. Four to one times more likely are our caregivers, whether they be paid or unpaid, women. So the other thing that I worry about, george and I worry about it a lot is that we've made this fantastic progress on diversity in the workforce and it's going to start to erode as women stay home or take different types of careers in order to care for their loved ones the way they want to care for them, with honor, but it means that they can't work in a traditional way.
Speaker 1:It's really incredible to hear from your perspective, phyllis, the impact, both personally and professionally, that you've encountered and that you've experienced, and how you're driving that into your work today. And so, as we look at some of the younger members of HOSA that may not yet recognize the importance of Alzheimer's prevention, what would you say to them and how can they start taking steps to reduce their risk later in life? Now?
Speaker 2:Oh, I wish I'd known so much of this long ago. I have kids that are recent college graduates heading into college and we talk about brain health a lot because they've seen this disease in our own family, and there are things that we can and should be doing for our brains right now. Now, the good news is most of our HOSA members have probably had conversations about mental health and how do we take care of our mental health, and stress and anxiety and depression, but also really impacted through the years of COVID. We know that it impacted our high schoolers and middle schoolers and college aid students pretty significantly. So most of them have probably been thinking about mental health or mental resilience, but they probably haven't thought about cognition, because memory is thought of as something that happens to people when they're older. But what we know now is we know that this amyloid plaque in the brain actually starts 10 to 20 years before symptoms. We also know that there are things that we can be doing. Today. I love talking to women in their 30s and 40s and saying take care of your brain, because we want to be able to take care of the people that we love. But it's even important for someone headed into college to be thinking about these things, and they're the same kinds of things we want to do for our overall health as well.
Speaker 2:So, mediterranean diet, a lot of data on plant-based diets and eating less red meat the Mediterranean diet, of course, that's high in fish and omega-3s. Getting rid of seed oils, things like that. No preservatives wherever you can Get rid of the sugary cereals. Get rid of fried foods and foods that have preservatives. I tell my kids shop the perimeter of the grocery store, not up and down the aisles, so diet's a big piece of it. The grocery store, not up and down the aisles, so diet's a big piece of it.
Speaker 2:The second thing is exercise, regular exercise. That doesn't have to be marathon training, but it should be something that gets your heart rate up for at least 30 minutes every day. Quit smoking. I mean, the good news is it seems like smoking is going out of fashion. But smoking and vaping get rid of it. There's just nothing good that comes from that.
Speaker 2:And alcohol Alcohol is a neurotoxin. So drinking alcohol in moderation or, if possible, not at all. There's these wonderful mocktails now and other things that you can do that are just as fun and exciting if you're going out for a night with friends, things like managing your blood pressure very, very tightly, of course, that helps with cardiovascular disease. And then, of course, social engagement. So actually go see your friends. Don't just text them, don't just game with them. Go see them and put phones away. You know, we used to have a thing with my friends where we put all of our phones in the center of the table and whoever grabbed their phone first had to pay the bill. So it really was a good motivator to make sure we really just paid attention to each other.
Speaker 2:Cognitive exercise that could be through your schooling or it could be through work or both. And then the one that I have to say over and over and over again, and it's probably even more important for our college age students, is sleep. You need to be getting seven to eight hours of quality sleep every night. So if you don't have a tracker on your Apple phone or a Fitbit or an Oura ring, get one. Track your sleep. You'd be amazed at how quickly you can see the things that you do during the day and how they impact your sleep. Sleep is the only time that the janitor comes through in your brain, which is basically the microglia chomping up amyloid in your brain, and so I always think of like a little Pac-Man running through my brain and I know that I need to get that quality sleep. Those things are going to help all of your body systems, right, not just your brain. Diabetes and cardiovascular disease reduces cancer risk, and we know that it also helps with mental health. So that's my list.
Speaker 1:That's my list. You know, phyllis, what an incredible, incredible lesson for all of us. I mean, you took us on this journey of what you should do and what you can do and, most importantly, what you should be thinking about to mitigate what is the progression towards Alzheimer's. And so, understanding that and then fully understanding what the experience for the caretakers, for the individuals that suffer with this disease the collective, what that is helps you to really reframe and understand what you're saying, the importance of what you're saying, and so we're grateful to hear from you based on your experience, again, personal and professional, regarding Alzheimer's, and so thank you for that. What is NeuroQuest, what are its benefits and how can people learn more about it?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So NeuroQuest or you can go to wwwmyneurotypecom is a really fun new way to start thinking about your brain health, and the most exciting part of it was we actually launched it at the 2024 HOSA International Leadership Conference in Texas, and it was so much fun to watch young people people much younger than me getting in, taking a brain health quiz, talking about your own habits and things that are important to you and then getting results back with guidance that explains to you. Here's some things that you can be doing for your own brain health, but telling you in a way that's meaningful for you. So what are the things that are important to you? Are you a neuro champion? Are you a neuro creative? Are you a neuro optimist, which is what I am?
Speaker 2:I think in order to be an Alzheimer's researcher, you have to be an optimist, but it gives you not just the information around brain health, which could be really dull if you just read it in a medical journal, but it gives you the information in a way that is exciting and very tailored to what's important to you, and I just had a great time watching young people take the quiz themselves but then send the links to their moms and their grandparents and their aunts and uncles and say take this, I mean, imagine if the young people in our HOSA community really started movements on brain health in their own families, in their own communities.
Speaker 2:I've often said, george, that every time I get skeptical and jaded I look at this next generation and I realize things are going to be okay. And I certainly felt that coming out of the HOSA ILC meeting last year because I just looked at that group and I said are going to be okay. And I certainly felt that coming out of the HOSA ILC meeting last year because I just looked at that group and I said if these are our future healthcare leaders, everything's going to be okay and I'd love for them to take on this brain health movement in their own communities.
Speaker 1:I'm so happy. I'm so happy to hear that, because I witnessed your reaction to, you know, having thousands, over 10,000 students in one room at one time, all part of the hosts of future health professionals pipeline, of which there are an additional 290,000 plus across the world, and you really are and become inspired and really truly hopeful for the future, and so I sure did.
Speaker 1:That's right. We all did and I still do, even after all these years of attending this International Leadership Conference. It's always a renewal of your faith in the future and so, as we said, at the 2024 HOSA International Leadership Conference, you assisted with Seth and Lauren Rogan's film being shown multiple times to thousands of students, called Taking Care. This film was, to say the least, profound. It documented Lauren Rogan's mother's battle with Alzheimer's. It was incredibly heroic of the Rogans to lift the curtain to show what they went through. All of it, all of it. What was that experience like and how did the HOSA Future Health Professionals audience respond?
Speaker 2:Well, I had gotten to see the film in one of the early premieres and I'm really glad I had seen it separately because, having lived a similar experience in my own family, I think it would have been a little emotional for me to see it the first time there. But that's what I saw, george is. I saw students connecting with what was going on this film, realizing that this is what had happened in their own families. You know they'd seen it either through the lens of their parents or friends. Many of them were tearful, thinking about the time that they had missed with their grandparents.
Speaker 2:And my boys so now 23 and 18, they'll tell you they didn't get to spend the kind of time with their grandfathers the way they wanted to. Their grandfathers weren't at their basketball games in high school. They weren't at their tennis matches or baseball games like they would want a grandparent to be able to do. And, as a result, the boys have said said we want to do this differently. And that's what we saw at HOSA, which I loved.
Speaker 2:We saw these young folks connecting with this film, taking not just the experience but putting it together with the science and the things that they're excited about, about being future health care workers, and so many of them walked out and said you know, I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do in my life, but now I'm sure I want to do something to battle Alzheimer's or to help care for older people. And you think about it? The world of careers in health. Healthcare is rich and robust, but with this advent of neuroscience and brain health and neurodegeneration and aging, it's just opening up massive amounts of opportunity in the healthcare field, and so I loved watching students take something that was very personal, connecting with it and then turning it into something that they felt like they could take action against in their careers.
Speaker 1:And so, phyllis, your career spans, as we've discussed, both the public and the private sectors, including advisory roles with various NGOs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, so much. How do these critical partnerships contribute to the fight against Alzheimer's and why, phyllis, are they so absolutely essential?
Speaker 2:Well, I think in any of the world's wicked problems and I would put Alzheimer's at the top of the list as one of the most wicked no one sector can solve it themselves. And I think the good news about the Alzheimer's field is we've known this for a while, so we've actually seen quite a lot of public-private collaboration. But you know you need the healthcare sector. So think like the medical fields, you need the life science sectors, that's, your industry players and pharmaceuticals and diagnostics development. You need government. Medicare is the primary payer for everyone over the age of 65. So, in the case of the United States of America, kind of a single payer system when it comes to Alzheimer's disease. But you also need philanthropy, and that could also be family foundations, and so when you start thinking about it, everybody has a role to play and the good news is we're a pretty collaborative field. We've had some experience in public-private partnerships.
Speaker 2:I'd like to see more. I'd like to see more funding come into this space. We're actually seeing entrepreneurs coming in, seeing business opportunities all across the spectrum of the disease, both in terms of consumer as well as in terms of medical care and enabling technologies and research, and so I really think if this is a place that you want to be. There's a place for you, and that's an exciting thing to be able to say to a young person or even a 50-year-old person that there's lots of opportunity to make an impact and to tailor that in a way that it really works for you, for your skill sets and for things that are important for you in terms of which sector you want to work in.
Speaker 1:And so, with all of these advancements in research and technology, what promising developments, phyllis, do you see in the fight against Alzheimer's, and how can organizations like the future health professionals, hosa, contribute to these efforts?
Speaker 2:You know, george, it's such a great question. One of the biggest problems with Alzheimer's disease is we have a mental model of a very late stage of the disease. So if you say Alzheimer's disease to friends and family, they often think of a very, very old woman in the corner of a nursing home in a rocking chair. Well, that's like stage four cancer, and nobody wants to diagnose cancer at stage four. Everybody wants to diagnose it at stage one or stage zero even. And so the problem with Alzheimer's disease is everybody has this mental model that is very late in the disease, it's highly stigmatized and it's very, very scary.
Speaker 2:Well, what we know now, as I mentioned, is that this disease starts very early. Right, the plaque starts to build 10 to 20 years before symptoms. But I've got even better news for you. But I've got even better news for you, and that is that the Lancet just published last year that over 40% of dementias are preventable with lifestyle change. The University of Pennsylvania also just released a study that said 70% of cases of mild cognitive impairment can be stabilized with lifestyle interventions.
Speaker 2:So now what do we really have to do? We have to shift this mindset of I only worry about my brain when something goes wrong to. I should be thinking about my brain all the time, just like I do my heart health. And if I can do early detection meaning I can catch cognitive symptoms as soon as the subtlest signs appear and then, when they happen, I can do accurate diagnosis Like now, we can actually tell you is it really Alzheimer's disease, or is it vascular dementia, or is it frontal temporal dementia, or is it geriatric depression, or is it a B12 deficiency these are all things we can measure now.
Speaker 2:So if we can start talking about our brain health at home, make it something that we just talk about, bring it out of the closet, bring it into the kitchen and start talking about what we can do, let's catch this disease as early as possible. So early detection and accurate diagnosis If we do that, we'll reduce the stigma and we will ultimately not just have better outcomes with the disease but probably have a lot less of the disease, and that would be good for everyone, not just ourselves, but our societies as a whole.
Speaker 1:Well, phyllis, as we begin to close this interview, we could really talk about all of your perspectives, not for hours, but for days or months or years, because you've lived it, you've seen it, you've contributed to the solutions that are coming about. And so, what misconceptions, what are those critical misconceptions about Alzheimer's that you believe need to be addressed, and how can greater awareness help change the way society approaches this disease?
Speaker 2:I mean the number one is Alzheimer's is not normal aging. It's not. There is no cognitive decline. That's part of normal aging. Our brains can stay as strong as the rest of our bodies can stay. So we have to, as clinicians, as patients, as loved ones, we have to take that normal aging out of our vernacular and we have to start saying that brain health is something we want to pay attention to, and we want to pay attention to it very early, consistently and so that, if I could change one thing, that's what it would be is that we stop waiting to think about our brain health until something goes wrong and we think about it like everything else we do with our health and remind people. If someone says, oh, it's just Alzheimer's disease, it's normal aging. No, it's not. Let's tackle this battle just like we've tackled every other disease that's faced our society.
Speaker 1:Phyllis Farrell. Hosa 100 International Advisory Council. To close, what is your key call to action for the future health professionals?
Speaker 2:I would just say that we're counting on you. As I mentioned, every single time I get skeptical and jaded about this world. I meet one of these HOSA members and I think everything's going to be okay, but that's because you guys have the creativity and the grit and the values and the breadth of experiences that we didn't have growing up, and so we're counting on you. Create a movement, talk about brain health and mental health with your friends and family and your parents and your grandparents, and make change, because you can, and I'm so thankful for you all.
Speaker 1:And that's the last word Make change because you can. Phyllis Farrell, member of the HOSA 100 International Advisory Council. On behalf of the future health professionals HOSA, we thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, George.