If you listened to former White House advisor Andy Slavitt’s recent podcast “Are We on the Verge of Curing Alzheimer’s?“, you learned a lot. But you were also surprised by the way it ended. Slavitt was joined by world renowned Alzheimer’s experts, Dr. Paul Aisen and Dr. Rudy Tanzi. Toward the end of the podcast, Dr. Aisen advised those interested in taking measures to prevent Alzheimer’s that taking supplements made no sense. You’d have expected a response from Dr. Tanzi, since we know he disagrees. But none came. So, we, at RaisingNAD reached out to Dr. Tanzi, and learned that his response to Dr. Aisen was edited out. Fortunately, the folks at Lemonada were kind enough to share Tanzi’s comments with us, which we’ve embedded and transcribed below:

First, here’s Andy Slavitt’s full podcast “Are We on the Verge of Curing Alzheimer’s?“:

At the 44:10 mark of the podcast embedded above, Alzheimer’s expert, Dr. Aisen said the following:

“One thing I would like to add, Andy, is that each of the suggestions that Rudy (Tanzi) made, is much more likely to be beneficial than taking supplements to promote brain health.

I think taking supplements is useless, and is more likely to hurt than help”.

Dr. AISEN

Readers of this site would’ve expected a counter argument from Dr. Tanzi. But none came.

After Dr. Aisen’s anti-supplement comments, podcast host Slavitt concluded the podcast.

So, what, in fact did Dr. Tanzi say in response (that was edited out) regarding brain supplements?

The following is the unedited clip (thanks to Lemonada).

DR. Tanzi – Alzheimer’s Expert (at the 5:30 mark):

“We’re doing trials on supplements.

So, I think Paul’s right, at the moment.

Some of them may hurt.

Some of them are completely bogus — they’re just made-up.

I won’t mention any names.

But, we’ve found hits on our screen that merit trials.

And, so we are doing the trials to see how they do.

We’re doing trials on Nicotinamide Riboside “NR” (FAQs) (Life Changing Anecdotes).

We’re planning trials on what are called Senolytics, supplements that help drive the death of zombie neurons that have tangles, that are not contributing to the neural network.

So, I don’t pooh-pooh supplements as much as Paul does.

But, I think, some of them are worthy of trials.

And we shouldn’t say anything about them until we do the trials”

Dr. Rudy Tanzi

Related:

  • Check out Andy Slavitt’s excellent podcast “In the Bubble“.
  • Dr. Tanzi explains in great detail why he launched a Clinical Trial testing Nicotinamide Riboside (NR) for Alzheimer’s (Link)
  • FAQs on the Potential for Nicotinamide Riboside (NR) in Alzheimer’s Patients (Link)
  • Nicotinamide Riboside “NR” (FAQs) (Consumer Reviews)

FOLLOW us on Twitter @RaisingNAD