The Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) is the largest annual conference focused on Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, and aging-related brain health research. This year, more than 11,000 researchers gathered in London from July 12–15 to share new findings and discuss where the field is headed.
Now that we’ve had some time to step back from the conference and consider what transpired, two developments in particular caught our attention: new evidence that lifestyle-based interventions to enhance brain health can be adapted across cultures, and rapid progress toward using blood tests to identify Alzheimer’s risk earlier.
Lifestyle Interventions Can Work Across Cultures
One of the most encouraging findings from AAIC came from a clinical trial called LATAM FINGERS, a study that adapted the multiple lifestyle interventions tested in the U.S. POINTER trial for communities across Latin America.
The study brought together participants across 11 Latin American countries and adapted the intervention to local cultures and healthcare systems. The original U.S. POINTER trial utilized four components: following the MIND diet, regular moderate exercise plus strength and balance training, cognitive and social activities, and ongoing monitoring of cardiovascular health. LATAM FINGERS adapted this approach to include familiar forms of physical activity, such as salsa and tango dancing and group exercise in public parks, as well as adjusting MIND diet recommendations to regional food traditions, using foods like avocado, quinoa, açaí, aguaymanto, chia, and pumpkin seeds. Researchers also translated and modified study materials and provided additional support for participants with limited experience using computers and other digital tools.
To learn more about the lifestyle approach used in U.S. POINTER and the results of the trial, read our previous article here.
The LATAM FINGERS results suggest that adapting the intervention to different cultures and healthcare systems did not diminish its potential benefits. Participants assigned to a structured lifestyle intervention showed a 55% greater improvement in overall cognition than those in a “flexible” intervention group, with additional improvements in memory, executive function, and processing speed.1 These are encouraging results as dementia rates continue to rise around the world. The findings suggest that lifestyle-based strategies for reducing cognitive risk don't necessarily have to look the same everywhere; they can be adapted to fit the cultures, resources, and healthcare systems of different communities.
Researchers are also exploring how these approaches can be enhanced. The Alzheimer’s Association has launched PROTECT-Cog, a $100 million global trial that will investigate whether combining lifestyle interventions with a metabolism-targeting medication, such as a GLP-1 agonist, can further reduce the risk of cognitive decline, mild cognitive impairment and dementia.
Blood Tests Could Help See Risk Earlier
Another area of rapid progress is the use of blood-based biomarkers to identify Alzheimer’s disease risk before symptoms appear.
At AAIC, researchers presented findings on p-tau217, a blood biomarker associated with Alzheimer’s disease. In a group of cognitively healthy older adults, those with very high levels of p-tau217 had an estimated 78% risk of developing cognitive impairment over the following 10 years.2
We covered this progress in our previous research update, Latest in Alzheimer's Research: Three Developments Changing the Field, where we explored the growing role of blood-based biomarkers in Alzheimer’s research. The results suggest a simple blood test may help identify people at elevated risk long before significant cognitive symptoms develop. Blood-based biomarkers may also help doctors prescribe lifestyle interventions (like the ones mentioned above) and help researchers identify eligible participants for prevention trials and more easily monitor disease risk over time.
We aren't quite at the point where a p-tau217 test is used as routinely as an A1C test for diabetes or an LDL test for cardiovascular risk, but we're moving closer to that kind of accessible, objective measurement of brain health. The easier and more accurately we can measure disease risk, the better positioned we are to do something about it. We can only effectively address what we can measure.
NeuroReserve Medical Advisors Making a “Splash” at AAIC
We’re delighted that two of NeuroReserve’s Scientific and Medical Advisors were also leaders of scientific conversations at AAIC this year.
Marwan Sabbagh, MD, of Barrow Neurological Institute, presented real-world data from a study called ALZ-NET on lecanemab, one of the new disease-modifying treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. The data suggest that side effects in real-world clinical use are comparable to, and in some cases lower than, those seen in the original clinical trials. The rate of disease progression also appeared lower in real-world patients than in the original trial population — an encouraging finding for people already living with Alzheimer’s disease.
As Dr. Sabbagh noted, “Fewer people are progressing from mild cognitive impairment to dementia, or from mild dementia to moderate dementia, reinforcing the totality of evidence of slowing progression.”
Jeffrey Cummings, MD, ScD, Director of the Chambers-Grundy Center for Transformative Neuroscience at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, chaired a panel on important clinical trials and presented an overview of the Alzheimer’s treatments currently in development, a pipeline that now includes roughly 150 drugs. His presentation highlighted the growing attention to inflammation and immune mechanisms, as well as the increasingly important role of biomarkers in the development of new therapies.
Cummings emphasized just how much biomarkers are changing the drug-development process: “Biomarkers are enabling rational drug development. I don’t see how we could do drug development without them … so we’re in a shifting period here. Dramatic shifting period.”
The research presented at AAIC makes one thing clear: the tools available to researchers are changing quickly. We’re learning more about how to reduce risk, how to identify it earlier, and how to develop treatments for people already living with disease. Though Alzheimer’s does not have a cure, these advances move the field closer to a future where we can act earlier with greater precision and impact!
References:
1. Crivelli, L. et al. Multidomain lifestyle intervention for the prevention of cognitive decline in at-risk older adults in Latin America (LatAm-FINGERS): a single-blind, multicentre, randomised controlled trial. The Lancet 408, 417–429 (2026).
2. Buckley, R. F. et al. Prognostic Value of Blood-Based P-Tau217 Levels for Progression to Cognitive Impairment. JAMA https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2026.12556 (2026) doi:10.1001/jama.2026.12556.