The first episode of Bill Gates’s new podcast “Unconfuse Me with Bill Gates,” released Thursday, explores how Seth Rogen and his wife Lauren Miller help to promote awareness of Alzheimer’s, and how cannabis could quickly become part of the picture.
The overarching concept behind the podcast is to learn something new.
Rogen and Miller, founders of Hilarity for Charity, joined Gates to discuss the future of brain health and tackling Alzheimer’s disease, which took the lives of Miller’s mother and Gates’s father. The organization aims to support families and caregivers of people living with Alzheimer’s, support research, and educate them about how to care for their brain health.
Previously, Gates joined the Alzheimer’s Association Part the Cloud global research grant program, by making a $10 million award. The Alzheimer’s Association, the global leader in Alzheimer’s and dementia research, worked through Part the Cloud to raise $20 million, doubling the total clinical research investment to $60 million.
Rogen explained in detail why he and his organization are spearheading Alzheimer’s awareness instead of a doctor.
Rogen referred to a study showing that people tend to listen better to celebrities than a doctor for health advice, which is not ideal, but he acknowledged the burden that he carries because of it. That’s why he enlisted even more celebrities at Hilarity for Charity’s 10th year anniversary, which ended up raising $877,000 for Alzheimer’s research and awareness last October.
“I think it’s all up against this massive societal shift that needs to happen as far as how Alzheimer’s is spoken about, how it is dealt with, and like the amount of money it receives in comparison to like cancer and things like that, which are less costly, more treatable and exactly as deadly,” Rogen explained. “I think the only logical answer is that people just don’t like talking or thinking about Alzheimer’s because it scares them.”
One of the most common misconceptions about Alzheimer’s is that there’s nothing you can do to prevent it, which is false.
A study published in The Lancet shows that 40% of Alzheimer’s cases are preventable and targeting risk factors early on is the answer. Rogen advise five brain healthy habits: sleep, exercise, nutrition, mental fitness, and emotional well-being.
Research on the efficacy of cannabis to treat Alzheimer’s continues to grow, showing both benefits and potential harms, and research published in the Journal of Pharmacopuncture in 2019 shows that combining CBD and THC together might be more useful for treating the disorder.
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Rogen and Miller believe cannabis’s ability to induce hunger and relieve stress might be good for preventing Alzheimer’s.
“I love learning,” Gates said, “even if the topic is complex.”
The podcast shifted to the topic of Houseplant, Rogen’s foray into cannabis, and how it overlaps with Alzheimer’s research.
“The impression of every stoner was that they’re like a lazy loser, and I was anything but a lazy loser—I was like creating a prolific career at the time when all I would do was smoke weed all day every day, which is all I still do,” Rogen clarified.
“Edibles? I don’t mess with that,” Rogen said. “Snoop Dogg doesn’t eat edibles.”
With cannabis still classified at the federal level as a schedule I substance with no medical value, research remains limited.
“It’s not federally legal, so there isn’t money to fund research,” Miller said. The topic paved the way for Gates to clear up what has been long-speculated: that he experimented with cannabis in his youth like most others.
“In school out of the, say 105 people in my class I think, there were three or four who didn’t smoke,” Gates said. “Because it was kind of a, ‘Hey, I’m an adult! Hey I can break the rules!’ But I will say, sometimes it’s like, I guess I’m doing this to be cool. It wasn’t so much smoking for pot’s sake.”
The idea of the podcast is to learn something new, not something that is already widely known and accepted. To learn more, visit the podcast website.