We don’t currently have any data that shows any clear way to halt or slow Alzheimer’s.

As someone with family affected by this disease, it’s a very personal choice whether you want to know or not, but I wish people understood that there are many things you can do with it, particularly for those who will be there for you if/when it hits.

Taking care of a loved one with this disease is extremely hard, and it’s even harder when they haven’t had any chance to prepare for this eventuality. Stuff like written records of your history (health, life, etc.), clear powers of attorney, and so on.

It also makes things much easier for healthcare professionals.

The most famous drug is donepezil (Aricept). This is very weakly effective on the whole. In most Alzheimer's sufferers, there is no effect. But some people respond well to it: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2328349

Galantamine, which is mechanistically similar, is another option. Interestingly, it's a natural product, which you can extract from the common snowdrop flower, galanthus nivalis, and many other plants.

Benzgalantamine, a galantamine prodrug, was approved in 2024. This has been, like many recent FDA approvals, somewhat controversial: https://ebm.bmj.com/content/early/2026/02/26/bmjebm-2025-114...

These drugs are, at best, stopgaps. There are no real mitigation regimes.

The article doesn't explicitly say but presumably you can start taking the anti-amyloid drugs to slow down the progression immediately, there's also lifestyle changes that can be made (most of those would likely benefit most people)

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/combination-he...

> Early detection of Alzheimer’s disease is important since the first treatments capable of slowing the progression of the neurodegenerative disease recently became available to patients, and these drugs are more effective when started sooner rather than later.