Renowned Alzheimer’s Neurologist Dale Bredesen, MD, Joins Pacific Neuroscience Institute
Dr. Bredesen Believes That Alzheimer’s Disease is Becoming Optional
SANTA MONICA, CA, April 16, 2024 – Pacific Neuroscience Institute® (PNI) is thrilled to announce that Dale Bredesen, MD, has joined the Pacific Brain Health Center. Over the past four months, as the senior director of the nascent Precision Brain Health program, he and his colleagues have been intensely focused on developing what promises to be the world’s first formalized system to comprehensively address neurodegenerative disease. While not quite ready for primetime, the excitement around the clinical implications for patients is palpable.
A New Era for Brain Health
“We are entering a new era in medicine,” says Dr. Bredesen. “Younger generations should not have to live with the fear of Alzheimer’s. At PNI, we will be implementing the methodologies that have arisen from my lab’s three decades of fundamental research as well as our published success. Taking a personalized, biological systemwide approach and becoming proactive about interventions, represent the first steps towards stopping Alzheimer’s in its tracks.”
Cognitive decline is a complex and chronic process that requires a multimodal approach, he explains. “We recommend that everyone begin active prevention when they turn forty, and get a ‘cognoscopy’, to assess their cognitive health and risk factors. Our protocol recommends targeted, individualized treatments of specific chronic infections (which often go undiagnosed) and identifies cognition-compromising toxins (which are also often unrecognized). Along with implementing lifestyle adjustments, we see a lot of hope.”
Recoding the Brain
Dr. Bredesen, a trailblazer in cognitive decline research and author of the first published report of reversal of cognitive decline, is an internationally recognized neurologist with expertise in the mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases. His years of clinical study and neurological research have opened the door to new approaches of treatment, leading to the ReCODE Protocol™. Also known as the Bredesen Protocol, this methodology has emerged as a viable attempt to prevent, arrest, and reverse symptoms of cognitive decline associated with conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, other dementias, and mild cognitive impairment.
“As a medical community, we have had very little to offer our patients living with diseases of cognitive decline. Hundreds of clinical trials have resulted in disappointment,” comments David A. Merrill, MD, PhD, director of the Brain Health Center at PNI. “Dr. Bredesen’s pioneering work over the last thirty years, along with over two hundred peer-reviewed publications, and more than thirty patents have pointed to tremendous promise. Now we are able to ‘prescribe’ lifestyle interventions such as exercise and nutrition recommendations, as well as other precision health interventions, that together can materially move people onto an alternate life trajectory – one that could circumvent cognitive decline.”
PNI Foundation launched a separate Brain Wellness & Lifestyle educational program led by Karen Miller, PhD, and her team of expert brain health coaches in 2022. They are already helping hundreds of clients through customized courses that incorporate lifestyle recommendations along with both physical and cognitive training.
Dr. Bredesen is working closely with Dr. Merrill on the clinical side of brain health and Dr. Miller on the lifestyle intervention side. “The Precision Brain Health program will integrate both of these aspects of care along with complete cognitive testing, genetic analysis, phenomic (biochemical) analysis, long term action plans, and more,” explains Dr. Bredesen. “I’m optimistic that outcomes will continue to improve—we are seeing that people with cognitive decline can, and do, get better. Pacific Neuroscience Institute has a history of innovation that fits perfectly with the development of this novel program.”
Tackling Alzheimer’s Disease
More than six million Americans live with Alzheimer’s disease—the most common type of dementia—suffering progressing symptoms of memory loss, confusion, behavioral change, and the loss of body control. It is unusual that deep scientific research comes to mainstream awareness, yet with a cure—or even an effective treatment—being frustratingly elusive, Dr. Bredesen’s 2017 New York Times bestselling book, The End of Alzheimer’s, captured the public’s attention. The End of Alzheimer’s Program and The First Survivors of Alzheimer’s, further provide documentation of individuals who reversed their cognitive decline using the ReCODE Protocol.
“A multidisciplinary approach to complex problems of the brain and mind has been foundational to our success at PNI and specifically at the Pacific Brain Health Center since its inception in 2018. As we hone the Precision Brain Health program, our aspirational goal is to provide actionable and realistic options to improve brain health and overall quality of life,” says PNI director and founder, Daniel F. Kelly, MD. “So far, results from clinical trials, and evidence-based lifestyle practices suggest that with Dr. Bredesen’s vision and multipronged approach, we may begin to see substantial numbers of dementia patients achieve a slowing and, in some cases, even a sustained reversal of cognitive and memory decline.”
“Younger generations should not have to live with the fear of Alzheimer’s”
Dale Bredesen, MD
Dr. Bredesen earned his medical degree from Duke University Medical Center and served as chief resident in neurology at the University of California, San Francisco, before joining Nobel laureate Stanley Prusiner’s laboratory at UCSF as an NIH postdoctoral fellow. Prior to joining PNI, Dr. Bredesen held University of California faculty positions at UC San Francisco, UCLA, and UC San Diego. He directed the Program on Aging at the Burnham Institute and joined the Buck Institute as founding president and CEO. Currently, in addition to his role at PNI, he is chief scientific officer at Apollo Health.
Adapted from press release 4/16/24.
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Last updated: October 10th, 2024