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Alzheimer’s Trials Exclude Black Patients At ‘Astonishing’ Rate. Ultimate Resource For News, Breakthroughs And Innovations In Healthcare
Black people are more prone than White people to develop Alzheimer’s yet represent only 2% of those in clinical trials.
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Brian Van Buren, a 71-year-old retired flight attendant, knows what that feels like. He’s been living with Alzheimer’s since 2015. Over the years he has tried to join numerous trials, but he says he’s been turned down every time.
In some cases he’s been told his other health issues—he suffers from diabetes, hypertension, and sleep apnea—rule him out. At other times, he says, he was turned away for not having a nearby partner or caregiver.
“I have been rejected for every trial,” says Van Buren, who is Black.
A Bloomberg News analysis of 83 Alzheimer’s disease drug trials shows Van Buren is no anomaly: Only 2% of patients included in trials reported in the past decade were Black.
Bloomberg’s analysis of minority enrollment looked at more than 50,000 participants in drug industry and government-sponsored trials to treat or prevent Alzheimer’s whose results were posted on the government website clinicaltrials.gov or published in major medical journals.
Two trials organized by Biogen Inc. for its drug Aduhelm, the first Alzheimer’s drug approved in almost two decades, were among those with the lowest Black representation.
Only 19 people, or 0.6%, of 3,285 participants in its two final-stage trials identified themselves as Black. According to government statistics, 9.6% of Americans 65 and older are Black.
A lack of Black representation is “astonishing but entirely typical for industry-run Alzheimer’s trials,” says Jennifer Manly, a neuropsychologist at Columbia.
Although scientists have been aware of the problem for years, she says, she hasn’t seen evidence that drug companies are making the kind of wholesale changes that would fix it.
Bloomberg’s analysis shows similar results for more than 90 trials of drugs for Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), though these illnesses appear to be somewhat less common in Black people relative to White people.
Biogen’s chief medical officer, Maha Radhakrishnan, acknowledges that diversity wasn’t a focus when the company began studying Aduhelm, but she says the company is making a concerted effort to improve.
It’s vowing to enroll 18% Black and Latino patients in the U.S. in a new trial of Aduhelm that’s been mandated by the Food and Drug Administration. It’s set to begin next month but won’t produce results for years.
There are good reasons to study Alzheimer’s in broader populations: The disease is still poorly understood, and the brain pathology and disease genetics may be different in groups with different ancestry.
“We’re not just trying to get a representative population because it’s a nice, politically correct thing to do,” says Stephanie Monroe, executive director of AfricanAmericansAgainstAlzheimer’s, part of the nonprofit UsAgainstAlzheimer’s. “Drugs will work differently in different populations.”
Alzheimer’s and other brain-wasting diseases have emerged as a new frontier of medicine. The FDA approved Aduhelm in June amid controversy over its efficacy, and similar drugs are in the late stages of trial.
A drug that works even modestly well for Alzheimer’s could reap many billions of dollars in sales, with the Black population potentially accounting for an important portion of the market.
The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that older Black people are about twice as likely to have Alzheimer’s or related dementia as older White individuals.
And in a study of more than 1.8 million older people treated at Veterans Health Administration medical centers, Black veterans were 54% more likely to be diagnosed with dementia over about 10 years than White veterans, while Hispanic patients were 92% more likely to develop dementia, according to results published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on April 19th.
Bloomberg’s analysis also found very low representation of Hispanic people in trials of Parkinson’s disease drugs. Critics contend doctors can’t possibly know the safety and efficacy of new drugs among diverse populations if drug trials include few of them.
Black individuals, for example, are more likely to have a gene called APOE4 that predisposes people to Alzheimer’s as well as side effects (including brain swelling) of some Alzheimer’s drugs.
In the U.S., Black people are also more likely to have preexisting conditions such as diabetes and vascular conditions that could affect how the drugs work.
Some researchers argue that by focusing on one cause of Alzheimer’s disease, a faulty protein called amyloid, the industry is tilting research toward healthier, more affluent White people. Screening for some trials tends to filter out anyone with various preexisting conditions.
That filter may rule out certain people who have had strokes or uncontrolled diabetes, conditions that tend to afflict Black people at higher rates than White people.
In most Alzheimer’s drug trials, “we are treating a type of Alzheimer’s disease that only affects a privileged few,” says Jonathan Jackson, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Community Access, Recruitment & Engagement Research Center, which studies trial diversity.
In addition, researchers tend to look for people who have received an early diagnosis of the disease. That factor favors affluent patients who have easier access to specialists and screening at a relatively small number of top medical centers.
Monroe has personal experience of this: Her father, who is 86 and has Alzheimer’s, didn’t get a clear diagnosis until five years after his symptoms began, she says, and by that time it was too late to join most trials. In any case, she says, he was never asked.
“Anyone who isn’t wealthy and White gets diagnosed much later, so they don’t even have a chance to be eligible, much less participate,” Jackson says.
The failure to get more Black people into trials could add to long-standing skepticism over laboratory science and drug industry trials among some in the Black community, who point to historic abuses such as the infamous Tuskegee experiments, in which poor Black men with syphilis were left untreated.
Wariness of the medical establishment among Black Americans has also contributed to vaccine hesitancy, which may have worsened many people’s vulnerability to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Pressure For Change Is Mounting
In a decision on April 7, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services sharply restricted Medicare coverage of Biogen’s Aduhelm, citing its potential side effects and unproven efficacy. Significantly, as part of that decision, the body also noted the lack of diversity in trials of Alzheimer’s drugs.
The Alzheimer’s Association is pushing for legislation that would create more federally funded Alzheimer’s research centers at hospitals in areas with high concentrations of underrepresented populations.
“The No. 1 reason people don’t participate is they don’t know about the studies,” says Jose Luchsinger, a professor of medicine at Columbia. In 2012 he led a trial whose enrollment was one of the most diverse examined by Bloomberg, with almost one-third of the participants identifying themselves as Black.
To attract patients, Luchsinger visited local senior centers, community organizations, and churches in neighborhoods around the university, including Harlem, to talk about mild cognitive impairment and tell people about the trial.
Columbia offered free car service to the university, including appointments on weekends for patients who couldn’t take time off from work or cared for grandchildren during the week.
“This is something we’ve struggled with as an industry,” says Stacey Bledsoe, a nurse who’s part of a newly formed team aiming to improve clinical trial diversity at Eli Lilly & Co. “If we have 12.5% of African Americans with Alzheimer’s disease, we should have 12.5% of patients that are of African-American descent in our studies.”
Van Buren says drug companies might have kept out people like him because their trials can exclude those with preexisting conditions that may be more common in older Black people.
Researchers are only beginning to study the impact of complicated trial rules, but one analysis by researchers at the National Institute on Aging found that 142 of 235 government-sponsored Alzheimer’s and dementia trials contained at least one exclusion criterion that could disproportionately affect Black or Latino individuals.
Some psychological tests that are designed to spot subtle signs of mild cognitive impairment were created based on responses from “highly educated White people,” says Reisa Sperling, a neurologist at Harvard Medical School who leads a big Alzheimer’s prevention trial called A4.
That bias may throw off the scoring when people with different cultural or educational backgrounds take them, resulting in some people being inaccurately classified as being too impaired to join a trial, she says.
In the A4 trial, more than 30% of Black people screened for the trial were excluded because they didn’t meet cognitive test criteria, compared with only 16% of White people.
Finally, Alzheimer’s trials are by necessity time-consuming, involving numerous in-person scans and infusions. They often require a partner or caregiver to accompany those joining a trial.
That complication could discourage economically stressed families from joining a trial and favor those who are more affluent and have resources and time to accompany their loved ones to doctor’s visits and tests, often in distant cities.
Van Buren, who is gay, says that the partner requirement also discriminates against many older LGBTQ people who live alone.
“It eliminates a large percentage of the gay population,” he says. Van Buren lives alone with his dogs, and his partner resides most of the year in Brazil.
Drug companies are getting the message. Biogen is setting aside dedicated funding to help hospitals and clinics reach out to underserved communities.
And in choosing trial sites, it’s carefully reviewing local demographics to make sure it has sufficient locations near where people of color live. “We take this very seriously,” Chief Medical Officer Radhakrishnan says.
Biogen’s partner, Eisai Co., says that its Phase III trial of an experimental Alzheimer’s drug called lecanemab, taking place now, was able to enroll 4.5% Black individuals and 22.5% Hispanic individuals in the U.S. portion of the trial, up from the numbers it achieved in its second-stage trial.
Roche Holding AG and Eli Lilly are also working on late-stage drug trials targeting the same brain protein. Roche says it’s making extensive efforts to increase diversity of its ongoing Alzheimer’s trials, including adding transportation and more reimbursement for trial-related expenses.
Eli Lilly is turning to mobile RVs to enroll people who don’t live near big research hospitals. The company has also found that increasing the number of minority doctors involved in its trials has helped recruit more diverse patients.
But there’s still a way to go. In one ongoing Lilly trial, only 12% of Black and Hispanic patients who volunteered met eligibility criteria, compared with a much higher 30% of non-Hispanic White and Asian patients, according to data the company presented at a recent medical meeting.
Drug companies have said that their large trials are conducted in numerous countries and may enroll substantial percentages of patients from countries with few Black residents, which could skew diversity representation lower overall.
Bloomberg was not able to perform an analysis of U.S.-only enrollment by race, which is not reported for many trials. For the large Alzheimer’s trials that reported country-specific figures, 48% of the patients were from North America.
Van Buren, turned down for so many trials in the past, says he’s given up trying to join a study. He’s come to the conclusion that the rules discriminate against people like him. “I don’t expect to be living that much longer, so why prolong it?” he says. “I have done everything that I have ever wanted to do in life.”
Updated: 6-21-2022
The 911 For Mental Health Is Almost Here — Ready or Not
The new emergency number 988 will launch across the US next month. Not everyone is prepared.
A 2020 law creating a national mental-health hotline, 988, was hailed as a milestone in making crisis services more accessible and de-stigmatizing seeking help.
But with less than one month ahead of its launch on July 16, state and local agencies seem unprepared for its rollout, according to a recent report from research group the Rand Corporation.
Designed to be accessible through phone, text messages and web chat, the new emergency number will connect to the existing National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which links to some 200 local crisis centers. When that hotline debuted in 2005, it fielded 50,000 calls; in 2020, it took 2.4 million.
The easy-to-remember 988 number could further transform the system for responding to mental-health crises, “in the same way that 911 spurred the growth of emergency medical services,” according to the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The hotline also aims to reduce reliance on the police and relieve emergency room overcrowding.
Efforts to create the three-digit code gained momentum during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, when concerns about mental health became especially acute. But even before that, about 39 million people in the US reported having a mental illness, and only 45% received any sort of care, noted Rand. Untreated symptoms can become a mental-health emergency.
Yet many communities haven’t prepared enough for the launch of 988. Rand surveyed 180 state, regional and county behavioral-health program directors from Feb. 8 through March 17.
More than half reported that they hadn’t been involved in plans related to 988. About 15% lacked a mental-health hotline or call center in their jurisdiction at all, and of those that did have one, fewer than half were part of the national Lifeline call network.
Meanwhile, a majority said their current hotlines lack text and online chat capabilities. Since suicide is common among young adults, teens and even tweens — it’s the second-most frequent cause of death for those age 10 to 14 — the lack of digital outreach is a concern.
However, Vibrant Emotional Health — the nonprofit administrator of the current Lifeline network — noted that Rand’s survey took place before the federal government started distributing additional funding in March.
That money will be used to strengthen national Lifeline services, chat and text networks, and Spanish-language offerings, as well as to develop infrastructure and services to support 988.
The transition to 988 is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create “an easy access point to reach a trained crisis counselor for anyone in emotional distress or suicidal crisis,” said Kimberly Williams, president and CEO of Vibrant.
Rand researchers suggested that local institutions expand emergency response systems and develop implementation plans that include stable revenue sources.
And they should evaluate the need for complementary mental-health services, such as inpatient facilities and school-based counseling programs, to ensure people in crisis can get the follow-up care they need once they hang up the phone.
For 988, the federal government allocated about $282 million to strengthen local crisis call centers, in addition to other grants to Vibrant. But states will have to devise other plans to make sure the program is effective and sustainable in the long term.
Still, despite the challenges ahead, 988 is expected to help connect 6 million to 12 million people with crucial health services in its first year alone.
Updated: 7-21-2022
Mushrooms As Medicine? Supplement Makers Promise Major Health Benefits
A wave of entrepreneurs is getting into a space that has deep history—and is growing fast.
Robin Miller practiced internal medicine in traditional settings for a decade, but got frustrated by the short amount of time she spent with patients and the poor tools at her disposal.
She says it felt as if most doctors were treating symptoms and not root problems. “So I stopped the regular practice,” she says, “and decided to do integrative medicine.”
Miller did a two-year fellowship in 2000 with alternative medicine guru Andrew Weil at his namesake center at the University of Arizona.
Weil has written more than a dozen books on the subjects of healthy living, and mycology (the study of fungi) is a passion: Since 2005 he’s teamed up with Origins cosmetics, which sells a Dr. Andrew Weil for Origins Mega-Mushroom skin-care collection.
Mycology inspired Miller, too. In 2006 she opened Triune Integrative Medicine in Medford, Ore., where she combines conventional medical care with mushroom supplements, yoga, acupuncture, and other complementary therapies to treat conditions such as menopause and diseases including cancer.
One early patient was diagnosed with Merkel cell carcinoma, a rare skin cancer. “The local dermatologist wanted to cut her finger off,” Miller says. “Which made no sense because by the time a tumor is there it has spread.”
Miller gave the patient Stamets 7, a blend of mushrooms and other fungi including royal sun blazei, cordyceps, reishi, maitake, lion’s mane, chaga, and mesima to support immunity.
(The mix was formulated by Paul Stamets, who’s considered a rock star by many in the mycology world.) She also recommended turkey tail to soothe the nerves causing back pain.
Six weeks later, Miller received a call: When the woman’s doctor removed the tumor, the cells were dead. Miller notes that mushrooms may not work for everyone, but this patient’s chemo-resistant cancer responded well, and she went into remission.
Several studies in the past decade have shown evidence of what Eastern medicine has long believed: That reishi, cordyceps, turkey tail, maitake, and other mushrooms can assist the body’s immune response.
Mushrooms And What They’re Good For
Chaga: Antioxidant, Digestion, Energy, Immunity, Inflammation
Cordyceps: Stamina, Stress
Lion’s Mane: Memory, Digestion, Stress
Maitake: Immunity, Balancing Blood Sugar
Reishi: Digestion, Energy, Immunity, Mood, Antioxidant, Recovery
Turkey Tail: Immunity, Digestion, Vitality
The Covid-19 pandemic has sparked a renewed interest in such supplements. Spins, a wellness-focused data technology company, reported mushroom sales in the natural retail space grew by 16.1%, to $420 million, in 2021 from the previous year.
In November 2021, Allied Market Research reported that the global functional mushroom market generated $7.98 billion in 2020 and expects it to swell to $19.33 billion in 2030.
The mushroom category at nutrition chain the Vitamin Shoppe Inc. grew 25% from 2019 to 2020, says Executive Vice President Muriel Gonzalez, and more than half the sales were driven by interest in immune support.
Other sought-after benefits include memory, stress, and energy boosts. Among the top-selling longtime brands are Host Defense Mushrooms (founded by Stamets), Om, and the Vitamin Shoppe’s Plnt.
But there’s also a growing number of entrepreneurs harboring a passion for the possibilities of fungi and an eye for design. Here are the companies to know.
The Multiverse
In 2020, friends Alli Schaper and Brian Friedman began this marketplace in an attempt to rebrand functional mushrooms (ones that are beneficial but nonpsychedelic) to prioritize mental health.
On the bright, colorful website there are 65 brands and 500 easily searchable products, including Maya Moon Co. chaga chai cacao truffles, Popadelics mushroom chips, and the pair’s own SuperMush, a trio of mouth sprays to promote immunity, energy, and relaxation.
To avoid the pitfalls of the cannabidiol space, the marketplace requires makers to meet product requirements. “What happened with CBD is everyone made a CBD product but didn’t use the right part of the plant, and the products were ineffective,” Friedman says.
Brands must have high milligrams of mushroom per serving size, have sustainably sourced ingredients, not be genetically modified, and be made from the mushroom fruiting body (stalk and cap). User reviews steer shoppers to the best products. $16 (truffles), $56 (chips), and $27 (mouth spray); yourmultiverse.com
Nooci
Founder and Chief Executive Officer Stephanie Tan tapped into her heritage for the plant-based line Nooci. “Growing up, I would see my grandparents take reishi mushroom as part of their wellness routine,” she says. “Reishi is viewed as the elixir to longevity in Asia.” And it’s a critical part of her Noo Air nasal allergy supplement. “It helps balance qi, or vital energy, in the head, which soothes allergy symptoms and provides a great immunity boost in general.” $45; mynooci.com
Rainbo
A personal health journey led Tonya Papanikolov to become a holistic nutritionist and launch Rainbo, a line of mushroom tinctures, in 2019. She is considered a Highly Sensitive Person, or HSP, which means Papanikolov is easily overwhelmed by her environment.
“I have a nervous system that responds instantaneously to my surroundings and that has manifested in my physical body as a lot of allergies and digestive issues,” she explains.
In 2011 she attended a seminar and became friends with David Wolfe—a controversial figure who pushes conspiracy theories and pseudoscience—who introduced her to the world of mushrooms.
When the mushrooms shifted her body from constant discomfort, pain and cramping to digestive normalcy she wanted to help others. Her Cordyceps Energy Super-Mushroom tincture aims to stabilize stress and energy levels, improve athletic performance, and even heighten libido. $40; rainbo.com
The Hao Life
William Li, a former publisher at Condé Nast, and business partner Danielle Chang, founder of Asian food festival LuckyRice, opened their line of herbal supplements in 2021, with the help of David Melladew, a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner who’s developed wellness programs for resorts around the globe. The goal: Update traditional herbal blends—including mushrooms—into pill form.
“Over the last couple of years, non-Asian people have been trying to claim herbal medicine, whether it’s Ayurvedic, traditional Chinese, Native American, or Indigenous medicine, in a way that felt like appropriation,” Li says.
Hao Life’s Breathing Room supplement blends astragalus root, reishi, and ginseng to enhance immune systems and alleviate seasonal allergies. $88; thehaolife.com
Renude
Brandon Mizrahie credits his wellness journey to meeting the hippie parents of a then-girlfriend when he was in high school. “They lived off the grid near Burning Man, and their house looked like it was in The Hobbit,” he says. They taught him to extract nutrition from plants into tinctures, and he began tinkering, eventually discovering a homemade chaga mushroom tea that helped stop the stomach pains plaguing him since the third grade. His asthma also cleared up, he says, and brain fog disappeared.
In his Renude powder, the natural sweetness of the chaga is enhanced by cinnamon, Peruvian cacao powder, Madagascar vanilla, and monk fruit. When added to coffee, it tastes like a Frappuccino. The powder packets were released in 2018, and within a year and a half, the “Chagaccino” was available in more than 1,500 cafes across the US. Celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Kourtney Kardashian are fans. $30 for a box of 10; drinkrenude.com
Rasa
For Lopa van der Mersch, in “an unbelievably stressful year” that included raising a newborn and leaving a cult, it was downing coffee that took her over the edge. “I went into full-blown panic attacks,” she says. As an herbal enthusiast for many years, she began Rasa with Ben LeVine, a former herb buyer for tea company Celestial Seasonings and an alumnus of the Colorado School of Clinical Herbalism and Maryland University of Integrative Health.
Their nine blends and creamer combine mushrooms and herbs to boost energy without the caffeine shakes, but the brand’s Magnificent Mushrooms is a multibenefit powerhouse that combines cordyceps, lion’s mane, poria, reishi, tremella, and turkey tail to boost immunity, ease the mind, and plump skin.
The earthy powder may overwhelm a fruit smoothie, but it adds a boost to savory soups and scrambled eggs. $30; wearerasa.com
Amazon Gives Healthcare Ambitions A Booster Shot
Buying One Medical puts tech giant more directly into patient care and may still be small enough to avoid dominance arguments.
Say this much for Amazon—they are not easily dissuaded.
In an environment that has become downright hostile to the expansion ambitions of tech giants, the biggest one of all keeps at it. Amazon—due to cross the $500 billion annual revenue mark this year—bought a major Hollywood studio earlier this year and is now going after the doctor’s office.
The company said Thursday morning that it has agreed to a cash deal valued at $3.9 billion for 1Life Healthcare, which runs a chain of primary care providers under the name One Medical.
The deal is Amazon’s third largest ever, following its 2017 acquisition of Whole Foods for $13.7 billion and the $8.5 billion buyout of MGM that was completed in March.
The latter deal took nearly a year to close compared with less than two months for Whole Foods, as regulators and lawmakers have taken to scrutinizing deals by major tech players, for fear of allowing them to extend their dominance into new categories.
The argument was a bit of a stretch in the case of MGM, whose share of the domestic box office hasn’t exceeded 4% since 2002, according to the movie industry data provider The Numbers.
Likewise, buying One Medical will hardly make Amazon the nation’s top doctor. The company’s $493 million in commercial revenue last year is less than 1% of total annual spending on primary care in the U.S. for commercial insurance, according to Craig Jones of Stifel.
It also won’t move the needle much for Amazon financially. One Medical is expected to cross the $1 billion annual revenue mark this year; Amazon now generates more than 35 times that amount just from subscription fees for services like its Prime program.
But Amazon has long had aspirations for the healthcare space. It bought an online pharmacy called PillPack in 2018, and launched an ambitious joint venture with J.P. Morgan and Berkshire Hathaway that same year to figure out a new system to reduce healthcare costs for their employees.
The latter ended up collapsing under its own ambitions; the three companies ended the operation last year.
In comparison, buying an established provider should go a bit smoother. Bernstein’s analysts wrote Thursday that the One Medical deal should provide “cross-selling synergies” with Amazon’s online pharmacy and possibly form the roots of a new service offering to employers.
The brokerage also speculated that it could become another benefit of Amazon’s ever-expanding Prime bundle; One Medical already runs on an annual membership fee model.
Amazon’s stock, which has sunk this year on sluggish retail sales, picked up 1% on news of the company’s latest deal on Thursday. In this market, a little speculative M&A seems just what the doctor ordered.
Updated: 8-11-2022
Selena Gomez’s Mental Health Startup Gets $100 Million Valuation
Tennis icon Serena Williams’s venture firm led the $5 million funding round.
A startup cofounded by pop star Selena Gomez, Wondermind, is raising funds at a valuation of $100 million as it looks to capitalize on a boom in the mindfulness trend.
Tennis icon Serena Williams’s venture fund, Serena Ventures, led the $5 million early-stage round, which was joined by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital. Brent Saunders, the former chief executive officer of pharmaceutical company Allergan, also took part.
Wondermind is focused on “mental fitness,” promoting routines to maintain mental health similar to how you’d go to a gym to stay physically fit. Gomez, Hollywood producer (and Gomez’s mother) Mandy Teefey and Daniella Pierson, the founder of pop culture newsletter Newsette, started the company after Pierson met the mother-daughter duo two years ago and quickly hit it off.
“They were so raw and real and vulnerable about their mental health that I was completely in awe,” Pierson said. “We all decided together that we had to do something.”
Gomez disclosed in 2020 that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and she has discussed her battles with anxiety and depression in interviews over the years. Teefey has also been candid about her struggle with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
Investors have poured money into mental-health startups over the past two years, with total funding in the sector reaching $5.5 billion in 2021, according to data from analytics firm CB Insights — more than double the previous year’s total.
While having the backing of a celebrity helps attract attention, it’s no guarantee of success. Mindfulness is an abstract concept by nature and competition is growing.
Early offerings at Wondermind include social-media channels and a newsletter, which offers “a roadmap for overcoming stigma, shifting your mindset and feeling supported,” according to its website.
Teefey is working on building the operation’s production division, which will create and release content on mental health.
Gomez is focused on creative direction and marketing. Physical products that involve behavioral therapies are being developed as well, Pierson said, without sharing details.
Williams, one of the greatest ever to swing a racket, earlier this week announced her retirement from professional tennis to focus on her family and her venture capital firm.
She’s been investing for nine years and has a portfolio that includes recipe marketplace Foody, kids’ social network Zigazoo and cryptocurrency firm Nestcoin.
“We’re obviously going to do more, and be a fund that does raise a billion dollars eventually,” Williams said in an interview. “One thing I’m good at is building a career.”
Williams has been vocal about mental health issues, including anxiety and postpartum emotions. She’ll be involved in Wondermind content as well and promote the brand as its upcoming projects are made public.
Updated: 8-22-2022
Improve Memory By Zapping Your Brain? Study Says It’s Possible
Noninvasive stimulation improved recall of spoken words in older adults who participated in a series of experiments.
Zapping the brain with weak electrical currents that mimic normal neural activity can boost memory in healthy older adults, at least over the short term, researchers said in a study published Monday in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
Electrical stimulation of the brain as a potential tool for enhancing memory is a growing field of research, with experiments showing that the ability to recall memories depends upon synchronized activity between different brain regions.
The new research, conducted on people over age 65, “adds to the growing evidence that noninvasive stimulation mimicking the rhythmic brain activity that supports cognition can improve memory” in this population, said Joel Voss, a University of Chicago professor of neurology who wasn’t involved in the research.
For the study, a team of researchers led by Boston University neuroscientist Robert Reinhart conducted a series of experiments to test the effects of noninvasive electrical brain stimulation on 150 people between 65 and 88 years of age.
Participants listened to and then tried to recall a list of 20 words spoken slowly to them as the researchers stimulated specific regions of their brains via electrode-studded elastic caps worn on their heads for 20 minutes.
The researchers found that repeated delivery of low-frequency currents to a brain region known as the parietal cortex—located in the upper back portion of the organ—improved recall of words toward the end of the 20-word lists.
When the researchers targeted the prefrontal cortex at the front of the brain with high-frequency currents, the study participants saw improvements in their ability to remember words from the beginning of the lists.
When the scientists swapped the frequencies—delivering high-frequency pulses to the parietal cortex and low-frequency pulses to the prefrontal cortex—they saw no improvements. Similarly, they saw no improvements among participants in a control group, who received no electrical stimulation.
The electrical stimulation improved both short- and longer-term memory lasting minutes by about 50 to 65 percent over four days of treatment, Dr. Reinhart said. The improvements persisted one month after the treatment sessions.
Short-term, or working, memory involves storing information over a period of seconds like remembering a phone number someone just gave you. Long-term memory involves storing and then retrieving information over minutes, days, months or years.
The results remained consistent even when the participants’ ages, sex and education levels were taken into account, the researchers said, adding that additional studies were needed to determine how long the memory improvements could last.
“This is one of the first—maybe the first—study to look at, not just stimulating the brain, but really a brain area with a specific frequency to have a specific effect on memory,” said Daniel Press, chief of the cognitive neurology unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who wasn’t involved in the research.
“That’s really one of the take home messages here—that it’s not just about stimulating a brain area, but it’s about stimulating a brain area at a specific frequency, so that it can then drive network communication,” Dr. Press added.
The technique aims to change the timing of brain cell activity and to direct the brain’s ability to rewire its neural circuitry, a phenomenon known as plasticity, according to Shrey Grover, a co-author of the new study.
“This plasticity is what allows the effects to be carried forward in time even when the stimulation has ended,” he added.
Though the apparatus used in the experiments is lightweight and easy to use, Dr. Reinhart said, it hasn’t been cleared for clinical use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and for now is available only in research settings.
“It will take more work to turn this into something that could actually help people with memory impairments,” said University of New Mexico neuroscientist Vincent Clark, who was not involved in the new study.
Earlier research among neuroscientists yielded inconsistent results about the benefits of electrical stimulation, and many of the experiments have been done on younger people, limiting their relevance to older populations.
Alzheimer’s disease and other brain disorders affecting memory are a growing national concern as the U.S. population ages.
More than 6.5 million Americans age 65 or older are living with dementia caused by Alzheimer’s disease, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. In the absence of medical breakthroughs to prevent or treat the disease, the association says, that number could more than double by 2060.
Updated: 8-24-2022
Americans Are Starting To Skip Therapy To Save Money
The average out-of-pocket cost a month is $178, according to Verywell Mind, and it can soar to $300 or more a session in major cities.
When Katie Dunn skipped a therapy session in June, she didn’t think much of it.
Prices had gone up at her local grocery store and her rent went up by more than $300 a month. She saved $85 by skipping the session.
Within a few weeks, a procedure at the dermatologist added more costs and she canceled therapy again. She canceled for a third time a few weeks later and quit altogether in July.
“I was having to choose between going to the doctor and taking care of my mental health,” she says.
U.S. inflation has been rising at the fastest rate in four decades. Consumers are responding by cutting back on spending for everything from flights and gasoline to makeup and shampoo.
While inflation eased slightly in July, some Americans continue to cut back in different ways, with many putting off therapy sessions or forgoing them altogether.
Nearly a third of American adults in therapy say they have had to cancel a session because they couldn’t afford it and nearly half say they would have to quit if their out-of-pocket costs increased, according to a survey from the mental health resource website Verywell Mind. The survey was conducted in the spring, with respondents’ median age of 36.
The average out-of-pocket cost a month in the U.S. is $178, according to the survey. It can soar to $300 or more a session in major cities.
In recent years, more therapists say they have moved away from accepting Medicare and private insurance plans, citing low and flat reimbursement rates.
Consumer spending data from Deloitte showed that healthcare spending was down 7% in July from September of the year prior.
Dr. Rosalind Dorlen, who has an independent practice in Summit, N.J., and doesn’t accept private insurance, says she recently offered a lower rate to a student who couldn’t afford to pay her full rate.
Her business has historically boomed during periods of economic uncertainty, including the 2008 financial crisis, she says. She expects to see the same now.
“People are experiencing more stress, there’s an exacerbation of chronic illness, they are having sleeplessness, they’re using more substances,” she says.
Casey Balchunas, who works for a health insurance company near Boston, quit therapy in May. She says she quit because her insurance provider stopped covering teletherapy, which would require her to pay more than $130 out of pocket a session.
She had two options: wait until January to change her insurance plan, or find a new in-person therapist. She tried the latter and was met with a nine-month waiting period.
“I just have to make it to Jan. 1,” says Ms. Balchunas, 30. “But it’s disheartening to go from having therapy every other week to not having that extra support.”
Many therapy providers say they are largely unaffected by inflation-driven dropouts thanks to wait lists that have amassed throughout the pandemic. Practitioners who use a sliding scale for payments have flexibility in how much they charge for sessions.
Amy Morin, a licensed psychotherapist who is now editor in chief of Verywell Mind, says she has received more emails recently asking for mental health resources outside of therapy, such as recommendations for books, podcasts and apps to use.
“I’m hearing people say, ‘I can’t afford to go to therapy every week,’” she says, “whether it’s because they have high out-of-pocket costs or because they’re paying for child care or just the gas prices these days.”
Brenna Laverty, 23, a mental health technician in Albuquerque, N.M., quit her subscription to the online therapy app BetterHelp after it started costing $70 to fill up her car’s gas tank instead of her usual $36.
Teladoc Health, owner of BetterHelp, declined to comment.
In its second-quarter earnings report, the company described a decline in the yield from its advertising as “an indication of belt-tightening among consumers.”
The company reported a net loss of about $3.1 billion in the second quarter of 2022 compared with a loss of $133.8 million a year ago.
In the spring, Nina Dippon, a marriage and family therapist in Colorado Springs, Colo., decided to start accepting private insurance, a decision that has required her to take on more clients to earn the same amount of money. She also must go through a monthslong credentialing process.
She estimates the change has helped some of her existing clients be able to continue treatment. She made the decision after hearing more patients ask for discounted rates.
Roughly nine or 10 clients asked to space out their sessions and several quit altogether, she says.
“I just got a text yesterday that said, ‘I have to cancel,’” recalls Ms. Dippon, “‘it’s not payday yet.’”
Amazon To Shut Down Amazon Care Telehealth Unit
Online retailer recently bought primary care company One Medical.
Amazon.com Inc. is closing a telehealth service it built in-house for employees and businesses as the company looks to retool its healthcare offerings following the purchase last month of a line of primary care clinics.
The technology giant Wednesday said it had decided to shut down the business by year-end because it didn’t meet the needs of potential business customers Amazon is targeting.
The unit has operated primarily as a telehealth service used by Amazon workers that in some areas could dispatch medical providers to patient homes.
“This decision wasn’t made lightly and only became clear after many months of careful consideration,” Neil Lindsay, senior vice president of Amazon Health Services, said in a memo to employees shared with The Wall Street Journal.
Online news outlets Fierce Healthcare and GeekWire earlier reported on Amazon’s plans to close Amazon Care.
The move reflects the difficulty tech companies continue to face as they seek to disrupt the healthcare industry. Amazon didn’t disclose any changes for its other healthcare units, including pharmacy business.
Amazon’s otherwise has shown great ambition in the healthcare industry, which Chief Executive Andy Jassy has earmarked as a priority. The company last month announced plans to buy 1Life Healthcare Inc. for $3.9 billion.
1Life operates a line of primary-care clinics under the name One Medical. Amazon is also among bidders for healthcare company Signify Health Inc., The Wall Street Journal has reported.
One Medical will provide Amazon with more than 180 clinics with employed physicians across roughly two dozen U.S. markets. One Medical Chief Executive Amir Dan Rubin is expected to remain as CEO once the deal closes.
Amazon is likely to face added challenges as it seeks to grow. By purchasing One Medical, Amazon is up against established companies that include UnitedHealth Group Inc.’s Optum health-services arm and CVS Health Corp., in addition to hospital systems.
Those rivals have a significant head start on Amazon. UnitedHealth owns the largest U.S. health insurer and has built-in relationships with employers and a trove of healthcare data.
CVS has upgraded stores to provide more healthcare services and aims to create a physician-staffed primary-care practice.
Amazon Care launched in 2019 and expanded from a service offered to employees in Washington state to a telehealth service offered throughout the U.S.
Amazon signed several agreements with companies to offer the service to their employees, including Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. and semiconductor maker Silicon Laboratories Inc., though the list remained short despite the company’s desires to grow quickly.
In some cities, employees who have used Amazon Care could begin in an app with a chat, continue with a virtual visit with a healthcare professional and include a home visit within an hour.
The service also has offered delivery of prescription medicine to a patient’s home. In Seattle, roughly 30% to 40% of employees used the service in a meaningful way, the Journal previously reported.
Despite that promise, Amazon has had difficulty expanding the service beyond its own employee network. Amazon is looking to disrupt a healthcare industry governed by state and federal regulations, as well as numerous companies and providers with established relationships.
An earlier attempt by Amazon to expand into healthcare through a joint venture with Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and JPMorgan Chase fizzled after three years.
Amazon Care has employed dozens of people including economists, engineers and business-development managers.
Mr. Lindsay in his note said employees affected could have an opportunity to join other areas of Amazon’s Health Services organization, and that the company would look to support employees seeking roles elsewhere.
Mr. Lindsay said he thought the healthcare industry remains ripe for innovation. “As we take our learnings from Amazon Care, we will continue to invent, learn from our customers and industry partners, and hold ourselves to the highest standards as we further help reimagine the future of health care,” Mr. Lindsay wrote.
Updated: 11-5-2023
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US Department Of Commerce Offering 6-Figure Salary To Crypto Expert (#GotBitcoin?)
Mastercard Is Building A Team To Develop Crypto, Wallet Projects (#GotBitcoin?)
Canadian Bitcoin Educator Scams The Scammer And Donates Proceeds (#GotBitcoin?)
Amazon Wants To Build A Blockchain For Ads, New Job Listing Shows (#GotBitcoin?)
Shield Bitcoin Wallets From Theft Via Time Delay (#GotBitcoin?)
Blockstream Launches Bitcoin Mining Farm With Fidelity As Early Customer (#GotBitcoin?)
Commerzbank Tests Blockchain Machine To Machine Payments With Daimler (#GotBitcoin?)
Man Takes Bitcoin Miner Seller To Tribunal Over Electricity Bill And Wins (#GotBitcoin?)
Bitcoin’s Computing Power Sets Record As Over 100K New Miners Go Online (#GotBitcoin?)
Walmart Coin And Libra Perform Major Public Relations For Bitcoin (#GotBitcoin?)
Judge Says Buying Bitcoin Via Credit Card Not Necessarily A Cash Advance (#GotBitcoin?)
Poll: If You’re A Stockowner Or Crypto-Currency Holder. What Will You Do When The Recession Comes?
1 In 5 Crypto Holders Are Women, New Report Reveals (#GotBitcoin?)
Beating Bakkt, Ledgerx Is First To Launch ‘Physical’ Bitcoin Futures In Us (#GotBitcoin?)
Facebook Warns Investors That Libra Stablecoin May Never Launch (#GotBitcoin?)
Government Money Printing Is ‘Rocket Fuel’ For Bitcoin (#GotBitcoin?)
Bitcoin-Friendly Square Cash App Stock Price Up 56% In 2019 (#GotBitcoin?)
Safeway Shoppers Can Now Get Bitcoin Back As Change At 894 US Stores (#GotBitcoin?)
TD Ameritrade CEO: There’s ‘Heightened Interest Again’ With Bitcoin (#GotBitcoin?)
Venezuela Sets New Bitcoin Volume Record Thanks To 10,000,000% Inflation (#GotBitcoin?)
Newegg Adds Bitcoin Payment Option To 73 More Countries (#GotBitcoin?)
China’s Schizophrenic Relationship With Bitcoin (#GotBitcoin?)
More Companies Build Products Around Crypto Hardware Wallets (#GotBitcoin?)
Bakkt Is Scheduled To Start Testing Its Bitcoin Futures Contracts Today (#GotBitcoin?)
Bitcoin Network Now 8 Times More Powerful Than It Was At $20K Price (#GotBitcoin?)
Crypto Exchange BitMEX Under Investigation By CFTC: Bloomberg (#GotBitcoin?)
“Bitcoin An ‘Unstoppable Force,” Says US Congressman At Crypto Hearing (#GotBitcoin?)
Bitcoin Network Is Moving $3 Billion Daily, Up 210% Since April (#GotBitcoin?)
Cryptocurrency Startups Get Partial Green Light From Washington
Fundstrat’s Tom Lee: Bitcoin Pullback Is Healthy, Fewer Searches Аre Good (#GotBitcoin?)
Bitcoin Lightning Nodes Are Snatching Funds From Bad Actors (#GotBitcoin?)
The Provident Bank Now Offers Deposit Services For Crypto-Related Entities (#GotBitcoin?)
Bitcoin Could Help Stop News Censorship From Space (#GotBitcoin?)
US Sanctions On Iran Crypto Mining — Inevitable Or Impossible? (#GotBitcoin?)
US Lawmaker Reintroduces ‘Safe Harbor’ Crypto Tax Bill In Congress (#GotBitcoin?)
EU Central Bank Won’t Add Bitcoin To Reserves — Says It’s Not A Currency (#GotBitcoin?)
The Miami Dolphins Now Accept Bitcoin And Litecoin Crypt-Currency Payments (#GotBitcoin?)
Trump Bashes Bitcoin And Alt-Right Is Mad As Hell (#GotBitcoin?)
Goldman Sachs Ramps Up Development Of New Secret Crypto Project (#GotBitcoin?)
Blockchain And AI Bond, Explained (#GotBitcoin?)
Grayscale Bitcoin Trust Outperformed Indexes In First Half Of 2019 (#GotBitcoin?)
XRP Is The Worst Performing Major Crypto Of 2019 (GotBitcoin?)
Bitcoin Back Near $12K As BTC Shorters Lose $44 Million In One Morning (#GotBitcoin?)
As Deutsche Bank Axes 18K Jobs, Bitcoin Offers A ‘Plan ฿”: VanEck Exec (#GotBitcoin?)
Argentina Drives Global LocalBitcoins Volume To Highest Since November (#GotBitcoin?)
‘I Would Buy’ Bitcoin If Growth Continues — Investment Legend Mobius (#GotBitcoin?)
Lawmakers Push For New Bitcoin Rules (#GotBitcoin?)
Facebook’s Libra Is Bad For African Americans (#GotBitcoin?)
Crypto Firm Charity Announces Alliance To Support Feminine Health (#GotBitcoin?)
Canadian Startup Wants To Upgrade Millions Of ATMs To Sell Bitcoin (#GotBitcoin?)
Trump Says US ‘Should Match’ China’s Money Printing Game (#GotBitcoin?)
Casa Launches Lightning Node Mobile App For Bitcoin Newbies (#GotBitcoin?)
Bitcoin Rally Fuels Market In Crypto Derivatives (#GotBitcoin?)
World’s First Zero-Fiat ‘Bitcoin Bond’ Now Available On Bloomberg Terminal (#GotBitcoin?)
Buying Bitcoin Has Been Profitable 98.2% Of The Days Since Creation (#GotBitcoin?)
Another Crypto Exchange Receives License For Crypto Futures
From ‘Ponzi’ To ‘We’re Working On It’ — BIS Chief Reverses Stance On Crypto (#GotBitcoin?)
These Are The Cities Googling ‘Bitcoin’ As Interest Hits 17-Month High (#GotBitcoin?)
Venezuelan Explains How Bitcoin Saves His Family (#GotBitcoin?)
Quantum Computing Vs. Blockchain: Impact On Cryptography
This Fund Is Riding Bitcoin To Top (#GotBitcoin?)
Bitcoin’s Surge Leaves Smaller Digital Currencies In The Dust (#GotBitcoin?)
Bitcoin Exchange Hits $1 Trillion In Trading Volume (#GotBitcoin?)
Bitcoin Breaks $200 Billion Market Cap For The First Time In 17 Months (#GotBitcoin?)
You Can Now Make State Tax Payments In Bitcoin (#GotBitcoin?)
Religious Organizations Make Ideal Places To Mine Bitcoin (#GotBitcoin?)
Goldman Sacs And JP Morgan Chase Finally Concede To Crypto-Currencies (#GotBitcoin?)
Bitcoin Heading For Fifth Month Of Gains Despite Price Correction (#GotBitcoin?)
Breez Reveals Lightning-Powered Bitcoin Payments App For IPhone (#GotBitcoin?)
Big Four Auditing Firm PwC Releases Cryptocurrency Auditing Software (#GotBitcoin?)
Amazon-Owned Twitch Quietly Brings Back Bitcoin Payments (#GotBitcoin?)
JPMorgan Will Pilot ‘JPM Coin’ Stablecoin By End Of 2019: Report (#GotBitcoin?)
Is There A Big Short In Bitcoin? (#GotBitcoin?)
Coinbase Hit With Outage As Bitcoin Price Drops $1.8K In 15 Minutes
Samourai Wallet Releases Privacy-Enhancing CoinJoin Feature (#GotBitcoin?)
There Are Now More Than 5,000 Bitcoin ATMs Around The World (#GotBitcoin?)
You Can Now Get Bitcoin Rewards When Booking At Hotels.Com (#GotBitcoin?)
North America’s Largest Solar Bitcoin Mining Farm Coming To California (#GotBitcoin?)
Bitcoin On Track For Best Second Quarter Price Gain On Record (#GotBitcoin?)
Bitcoin Hash Rate Climbs To New Record High Boosting Network Security (#GotBitcoin?)
Bitcoin Exceeds 1Million Active Addresses While Coinbase Custodies $1.3B In Assets
Why Bitcoin’s Price Suddenly Surged Back $5K (#GotBitcoin?)
Zebpay Becomes First Exchange To Add Lightning Payments For All Users (#GotBitcoin?)
Coinbase’s New Customer Incentive: Interest Payments, With A Crypto Twist (#GotBitcoin?)
The Best Bitcoin Debit (Cashback) Cards Of 2019 (#GotBitcoin?)
Real Estate Brokerages Now Accepting Bitcoin (#GotBitcoin?)
Ernst & Young Introduces Tax Tool For Reporting Cryptocurrencies (#GotBitcoin?)
Recession Is Looming, or Not. Here’s How To Know (#GotBitcoin?)
How Will Bitcoin Behave During A Recession? (#GotBitcoin?)
Many U.S. Financial Officers Think a Recession Will Hit Next Year (#GotBitcoin?)
Definite Signs of An Imminent Recession (#GotBitcoin?)
What A Recession Could Mean for Women’s Unemployment (#GotBitcoin?)
Investors Run Out of Options As Bitcoin, Stocks, Bonds, Oil Cave To Recession Fears (#GotBitcoin?)
Goldman Is Looking To Reduce “Marcus” Lending Goal On Credit (Recession) Caution (#GotBitcoin?)
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