--- title: The Death Rate from Alzheimer’s Disease Is Climbing description: The death rate from Alzheimer’s is climbing, according to the latest CDC study, and more families are caring for loved ones with the disease canonical: https://time.com/4794248/alzheimers-disease-deaths/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-25T17:07:32.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-08T09:04:18.607Z article:section: Health og:title: The Death Rate from Alzheimer’s Disease Is Climbing og:description: More families are also caring for loved ones with the disease at home og:url: https://time.com/4794248/alzheimers-disease-deaths/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7f3dac29c3141986/6988ceeb0a4a226a409ce566/alzheimers-disease.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5250 og:image:height: 2953 og:image:alt: alzheimers-disease og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Death Rate from Alzheimer’s Disease Is Climbing twitter:description: More families are also caring for loved ones with the disease at home twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7f3dac29c3141986/6988ceeb0a4a226a409ce566/alzheimers-disease.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Death Rate from Alzheimer’s Disease Is Climbing > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=75e18ce9-b85a-44da-b506-8f7f666d07fe&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Alzheimer's Researcher Rudolph Tanzi on Why he's Optimistic [Watch (HLS stream): Alzheimer's Researcher Rudolph Tanzi on Why he's Optimistic](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Ebl6dMCj.m3u8) (3:53)  _Published 2015-08-26. Tanzi is a pioneer in the field of Alzheimer's research, and has spent most of his career studying a disease that plagues 5.3 million Americans every year._  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent May 25, 2017 5:07 PM UTC Tanzi is a pioneer in the field of Alzheimer's research, and has spent most of his career studying a disease that plagues 5.3 million Americans every year.  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent May 25, 2017 5:07 PM UTC As the U.S. population continues to age, experts say rates of [Alzheimer’s disease](http://time.com/4447997/untangling-alzheimers/?iid=sr-link1), a neurodegenerative condition that involves memory loss, will rise as well. Already, researchers say that deaths from Alzheimer’s are increasing. In the latest report on the subject, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, scientists found that deaths from Alzheimer’s increased 55% from 1999 to 2014\. The data was collected from the National Vital Statistics System, which analyzes death certificate information in the U.S. While people with Alzheimer’s may die of other causes, such as respiratory failure or heart disease, these data capture when Alzheimer’s is an underlying cause for those conditions. **MORE:** [Alzheimer’s from a New Angle](http://time.com/4217067/alzheimers-from-a-new-angle/) The report, which tracked deaths at the county level, found that the regions with the highest deaths from Alzheimer’s were in the southeast, midwest and along the west coast. The report also found an increase in the number of people with Alzheimer’s disease who are dying at home; it rose from 14% to 25% in the period analyzed in the study, which suggests that more families are caring for loved ones with the disease. As a result, [more education and support](http://time.com/money/4501444/alzheimers-family-caregivers-steep-costs/)—in the forms of coverage for providing these services—may be needed in coming years. ## Transcript [00:00] When [00:02] you realize you've found a new gene, or you've found a [00:07] defect in a gene you've been searching for, there's this [00:10] moment in time where there's this incredible amount of [00:13] satisfaction. And then you go to bed, and you know [00:16] that at least for that evening, you're the only person in [00:19] the universe to have discovered this amazing thing. [00:22] They might have the chance to help billions of people [00:25] now and long after you're gone. So it's really, it's hard [00:28] to describe a feeling like it. We [00:33] were the first ones to find the disease gene using [00:36] genetics, back in the early 80's. Our lab equipment [00:39] catalog was basically Kmart. Because nobody sold [00:42] anything yet we had to build it all. For my student [00:46] thesis, I decided I wanted to build the first end to end [00:48] map of a chromosome. It was the first time that was [00:50] gonna be possible. And I'd been working on that gene [00:53] and other genes like it ever since trying to come up [00:55] with novel therapies for the disease. I have Alzheimer's [00:59] disease. Early onset. I got to talk a little bit to Julianne [01:04] Moore, who was a Time 100 honoree at the gala. And I [01:09] told her, I said, the mutation you had in the movie, I [01:11] discovered. That was the gene mutation you had in the [01:13] movie was actually discovered by our lab. [ MUSIC ] [01:19] Between 1906 and 1986, We [01:23] had no idea what caused the pathology. So people [01:25] would look in the brains of patients after they died; [01:29] See the plaques, the tangles, the evidence, the [01:32] information and then have to guess what happened to [01:35] this brain. And it was the equivalent really of aliens [01:38] coming down from space and they want to understand [01:40] the game of football and say" Well, wow what [01:43] happened here "? They see some grass dug up and... [01:46] Crumbled up sheet of paper where they get a little bit [01:49] more evidence of what happened. There's no footballs [01:50] in sight. There are no players in sight. For decades, [01:54] that was the equivalent of how we were trying to figure [01:57] out Alzheimer's. Then in the late 80s when we and [02:00] others found the first Alzheimer's genes, now we had [02:03] the real physical targets. We said, this is what's going [02:06] on. Here's the gene that makes the amyloid. Here are [02:08] the mutations that make everything go wrong. And so [02:11] now for the first time, we had hard evidence from [02:13] genes and proteins that said exactly what was [02:16] happening before the pathology. [02:20] [ MUSIC ] Alzheimer's disease affects 50 % of people [02:23] over 85. Life span right now is 80. If we don't throw [02:27] more money into this disease, There's a 50 % chance [02:30] you're gonna get this disease in your lifetime cuz [02:32] you're probably gonna reach 85. We know so much [02:35] about this disease. We now know of 2 or 3 dozen [02:38] different genes beyond the first 4 we found in the 80s [02:40] and 90s that cause this disease or are predisposed to [02:44] it. But the funding is what limits how much we can do. [02:48] We have enough funding to do about five percent of [02:53] our to- do list of equally important tasks. You look at [02:56] cancer, AIDs, heart disease. They get twelve billion, [02:59] ten billion, eight billion. six billion dollars from the [03:02] government and you see in the incidents of these [03:04] diseases all go down as a result. Alzheimer's last year [03:07] got a half a billion Yeah. I always teach [03:12] my students and trainees, think about what science is [03:14] going like 50 or 100 years from now and make it your [03:18] goal to come up with something that lasts 50 years [03:20] and doesn't go away. Your role as a scientist when you [03:23] go into the lab is not to prove it but to disprove it. If [03:27] you go in the lab, And try to crush your hypothesis, [03:31] kill it, and then see what little thread survives. [03:36] And then use that to come up with the next idea. Over [03:39] your lifetime, you're gonna build a little tapestry. If it [03:42] hangs on in 50 years from now, it's still part of the [03:44] [ UNKNOWN ] tapestry, you've done more than most. 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