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Bill Gates is speaking out about his personal experience with Alzheimer’s — and his hope for progress in fighting the disease.
In an essay published this week on his blog at GatesNotes.com, the Microsoft co-founder and tech billionaire, 69, reflected on the difficulty of spending another Father’s Day without his dad, Bill Gates Sr.
The elder Gates passed away in 2020 at the age of 94 after battling Alzheimer’s.
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“It was a brutal experience, watching my brilliant, loving father go downhill and disappear,” Gates wrote in the blog post.
Today, 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 65.
Bill Gates and Bill Gates Sr. pose in a meeting room at the Seattle headquarters of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2008. (Gates Ventures)
In his blog, Gates expressed optimism about the “massive progress” being made in the fight against Alzheimer’s and other dementias.
Last year, Gates said he visited Indiana University’s School of Medicine in Indianapolis to tour the labs where teams have been researching Alzheimer’s biomarkers.
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“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.)
Bill Gates Jr. (right) poses with his father at his graduation ceremony in 1973. (Gates family)
“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 55 years and older, as Fox News Digital reported at the time.
“A simple, accurate and easy-to-run blood test might one day make routine screening possible.”
Traditionally, Gates noted, the primary path to Alzheimer’s diagnosis was either a PET scan (medical imaging) or spinal tap (lumbar puncture), which were usually only performed when symptoms emerged.
The hope is that blood-based tests could do a better job of catching the disease early, decline begins.
The Gates family poses for a photo in 1965. The elder Gates passed away in 2020 at the age of 94 after battling Alzheimer’s. (Gates family)
“We now know that the disease begins 15 to 20 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 possible, identifying patients long before they experience cognitive decline,” he stated.
Gates said he is often asked, “What is the point of getting diagnosed if I can’t do anything about it?”
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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 disease, but what I’m really excited about is their potential when paired with an early diagnostic,” Gates noted.
Alzheimer’s disease currently affects more than seven million Americans, or one in nine people over 65. (iStock)
He said 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.
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“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 disease’s pathology and developing even better diagnostics,” Gates went on.
“I am blown away by how much we have learned about Alzheimer’s over the last couple of years.”
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.
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“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 many 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 disease.”