When her memories faded from Alzheimer’s in her late 50s, Tammy Maida began to track her life. Car keys, glasses and her wallet disappeared multiple times in a day. The important characters in the novel she was reading had been forgotten. The groceries remained in the garage. It’s no longer possible to maintain books for family business.
“I honestly thought I was losing my heart, and the fear of losing my heart was horrifying,” Maida told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta in the 2024 CNN documentary “The Last Alzheimer’s Patient.”
Maida’s cognition improved after 20 weeks in a randomized clinical trial designed to dramatically change her diet, exercise, stress levels and social interactions. She recalls reading the novel and once again managed to balance the spreadsheet. A study published in June 2024 found that blood tests even discovered levels of amyloid, a characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease.
“I’m back. It was really good – like I was before the illness was diagnosed,” Maida, now 68, told researchers in the study. “My older but better version.”
Dr. Dean Ornish, professor of clinical medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and creator of the Ornish Diet and Lifestyle Medicine Program, showed additional improvements after Maida’s recognition completed a total of 40 weeks of intensive lifestyle changes.
Ornish provided an update on the survey at the 2025 Alzheimer’s Disease Association International Conference held in Toronto on Tuesday.
Not all of the 26 intervention groups benefited, but 46% showed improvement in three of the four standardized tests, he said.
“An additional 37.5% of people showed no cognitive decline in these 40 weeks,” Ornish said. “Therefore, over 83% of patients improved or maintained cognition during the five-month program.”
The new findings reflect research from other studies on lifestyle interventions, he said, including the recent US Pointer Study, which is the largest clinical trial in the United States, testing moderate lifestyle interventions over two years in people at risk but not yet suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
“Our research shows for the first time these findings are showing that more intensive lifestyle changes either stop cognitive decline in many people already with Alzheimer’s disease, or even show that these improvements continue over a longer period of time,” Ornish told CNN.
And unlike the drugs available for Alzheimer’s, he added that lifestyle changes do not have side effects, such as brain bleeding or swelling, which can occur with the latest class of drugs.
New York-based insurance company Emblemhealth announced Tuesday that it will be the first health insurance company to cover the Ornish Lifestyle Medicine program for early-stage Alzheimer’s disease patients.
“Eat well, move more, reduce stress, love more.”
Lifestyle interventions created by Ornish – he calls “eat well, move more, reduce stress, love more”, but has been tested previously. In 1990, Ornish showed for the first time in a randomized clinical trial that coronary artery disease can be reversed with anything other than diet, exercise, stress reduction and social support.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in the US declared in 2010 that Ornish’s program to reverse heart disease is “intensive cardiac rehabilitation” and is eligible for refunds under Medicare.
Additional studies have shown that the same four-part program may lower blood sugar levels in diabetic patients, lower the risk of heart disease, reduce the growth of prostate cancer cells, improve depression, and even prolong telomeres, the protective caps for chromosomes worn by aging.
During Ornish’s intervention, one group of people consumed strict vegan food, performed daily aerobic exercise, practiced stress relief, and engaged in online support groups. The remaining participants were in the control group and were asked not to make any changes to their daily habits.
Therapists led three group sessions per hour, and participants were encouraged to share their feelings and seek support. Meditation, deep breathing, yoga and other other stress-relieving methods took an additional hour each day. The program also encouraged participants to prioritize quality sleep.
Supplements were provided to everyone in the intervention group including daily multivitamins, omega-3 fatty acids containing curcumin, coenzyme Q10, vitamins C and B12, magnesium, probiotics, and lion mane mushrooms.
In addition to online strength training led by physical trainers, intervention people took part in one hour video classes on vegan nutrition organized by a nutritionist. All meals and snacks for both participants and their partners were then delivered to their home to ensure they adhere to the vegan diet.
The complex carbohydrates found in whole grains, vegetables, fruits, tofu, nuts and seeds make up most diets. Sugar, alcohol and refined carbohydrates in processed and ultra-highly processed foods were taboo. Although there were no limits on calories, protein and total fat only comprised about 18% of your daily calorie intake.
Ornish, the founder and president of the nonprofit Institute for Preventive Medicine and co-author of “Undo! Simple lifestyle changes can reverse most chronic diseases,” said the people in the intervention group who worked hardest to change their lifestyles are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones
“There was a statistically significant dose-response relationship between the degree of adherence to changes in our lifestyle and the degree of improvement seen on cognitive measures,” Ornish said.
25 people in the original 20-week control group of this study – who did not receive the intervention – showed additional cognitive decline during the program. They were later allowed to participate in the intervention for 40 weeks, during which time they significantly improved their cognitive scores, Ornish said.
Rudy Tanzi, a researcher of Alzheimer’s disease and professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School in Boston, said co-study author Rudy Tanzi.
“If you imagine a brain full of damage as a sink full of water, just turn off the tap and it takes a long time for that sink to slowly drain, right?” Tanzi told CNN in 2024. “As we found in one blood test, if you want to lower your amyloid in 20 weeks, you’ll need a lotuser.”
A 2024 study showed a significant improvement in the original intervention group with a blood test called plasma Aβ42/40. Aβ42/40 measures the levels of amyloid in the blood, an important symptom of Alzheimer’s disease.
However, tests measuring amyloid in a variety of ways showed no improvement, Dr. Suzanne Schindler, an associate professor of neurology at the University of Washington School of Medicine, specializing in blood biomarkers, told CNN at the time.
There was no major change in amyloid testing Schindler, who was not involved in the study, said it was called P-Tau 181, which is considered an excellent measure of the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. There was also no change in glial fibrotic acid protein or GFAP, another blood biomarker that appears to correlate fairly well with Alzheimer’s disease.
“If one of these markers is improved, we usually see them all improve, so the fact is “I didn’t wonder if this effect was realistic,” Schindler said.
However, in the full 40-week program, many people in the intervention group continued to improve their Aβ42/40 scores, according to a survey update.
“It is not surprising after just 40 weeks, as the amyloid changes measured as the plasma Aβ42/40 ratio occur before changes in tau markers such as P-TAU 218,” Ornish said.
For Ornish, who has seen members of his family die of Alzheimer’s, the results of this study are important for one important reason: hope.
“Perhaps when people get diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, they’re told by their doctors, “It’s only getting worse, it’s just sorting out your problems.” It’s horrifying news, almost self-realization,” Ornish said.
“Our new findings empower patients with early stage Alzheimer’s disease with the knowledge that if they develop and maintain these intensive lifestyle changes, it may be reasonably good to slow the progression of the disease and often improve it,” he said.
“Our research needs to be replicated in a larger, more diverse group of patients. “However, the results we report today give many people new hopes and new choices. And the only side effects are good.”
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