Blueberries Among Top Tips to Avoid Alzheimer's, Journalist Says

HEALTH -- September 30, 2010 at 1:00 PM EDT

Blueberries Among Top Tips to Avoid Alzheimer's, Journalist Says

When health journalist Jean Carper discovered that she carried the ApoE4 gene that triples her risk for developing Alzheimer's disease, she became interested in finding out more about the latest research on Alzheimer's prevention.

More research and public education preventing the disease will be crucial in the coming decades as the U.S. population ages, former CNN medical correspondent said.

"Right now in the U.S., we have about 5 million people with Alzheimer's. By 2050, we are going to have almost tripled that," she said. "And our health care costs are going to soar. Right now we're spending $178 billion to care for people with Alzheimer's. in the year 2050, unless we do something about this, we are going to be spending $1 trillion."

Watch my conversation with Carper about her new book, "100 Simple Things You Can Do To Prevent Alzheimer's."

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