On the morning of November 20, 2022, Peking University Sixth Hospital held the launch meeting of the National Medical Center for Mental Illness and the first High-quality Development Forum. Jianping Jia, professor and director of the Department of Neurology, Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University, was invited to give a speech on the current situation of Alzheimer’s disease and prevention strategies in China. Professor Jia shared his views and his team’s achievements from three aspects: the current situation of Alzheimer’s disease in China, asymptomatic diagnosis, and new drug development and prevention.
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a major disease that endangers the health of the world population. According to the survey data in 2020, there are more than 50 million dementia patients in China, and the distribution pattern is low in the south, high in the north and higher in the west. The onset of dementia is closely related to the environment, region and lifestyle. In 2015, the average cost of AD patients in China was 120,000 yuan, with a total cost of more than 1.1 billion yuan, causing a serious economic burden on society. In terms of the prevention and treatment of AD, Professor Jia expounded the important view that “asymptomatic diagnosis is the key to reversing AD”, which was rated as the first of the top ten preface scientific questions by the China Association for Science and Technology in 2022. The diagnosis of asymptomatic phase is more dependent on the detection of biomarkers, including genetic markers, peripheral blood markers, nuclear magnetic imaging and many other markers.It is worth noting that the prevention of AD not only depends on the detection of biomarkers, but also a healthy lifestyle can protect the memory of the elderly. In a 10-year follow-up of nearly 30,000 older adults, Jia’s team found that those who maintained a healthy lifestyle experienced slower memory decline, and the study also found differences in the trajectory of memory decline among older adults with different genotypes. In addition, Professor Jia also introduced two new potential pathogenesis of AD: abnormal palmitylation of APP and self-replication of Aβ oligomer, which provides new directions for basic experiments and is A potential new target for drug development. Professor Jia’s report contributes to our in-depth understanding of AD and provides new ideas for the prevention and treatment of AD.