Briefing and Interview Opportunity: Congressional Witness Issues Unprecedented Call for New Research Agenda for Alzheimer's Prevention 5/2/2003
From: Matt Russell, 520-232-9840 (office) or 520-909-3941 (cell); for the Alzheimer's Prevention Foundation International News Advisory: WHO: Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D. President and Medical Director Alzheimer's Prevention Foundation International WHAT: Press Briefing and Interview Opportunity: Congressional Witness Issues Unprecedented Call For New Research Agenda for Alzheimer's Prevention WHEN: Wednesday, May 7, 5 p.m. WHERE: National Press Club Zenger Room 529 14th Street, N.W. 13th Floor Washington, D.C. BACKGROUND: Alzheimer's disease is largely a disease of lifestyle and, as such, can be prevented. This message of hope will be taken to a U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on May 7, delivered by best selling author and international Alzheimer's authority Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D. The National Institute on Aging has called Alzheimer's disease "a looming public health threat." Alzheimer's currently affects more than 4 million people in the United States. The number of those diagnosed with the disease could reach 14 million in just 40 years if a therapy for prevention is not implemented. Dr. Khalsa has been invited by the House Appropriations Committee to present his platform for the prevention of Alzheimer's disease, an approach that is based on an integrative medicine model (including diet and nutritional supplementation, physical and cognitive exercise, stress management/mind-body medicine, and pharmaceutical medications and hormones). During his testimony, he plans to express concern that the national dialogue on Alzheimer's disease, and a vast majority of the federal research conducted to unlock the mystery behind the diagnosis, continues to focus almost entirely on drug-based treatment. But research based on an integrative approach to prevention, Khalsa will argue, "combines the best of good science with the best of good sense, and that is a critical step along the journey to eradicate the debilitating effects of Alzheimer's." Dr. Khalsa is the author of four critically acclaimed and best selling books, Brain Longevity, The Pain Cure, Meditation as Medicine, and Food as Medicine. Dr. Khalsa adopted the Sikh faith in 1981, and has since donned a full beard and turban. He lectures widely in the United States and abroad. |