estimated 5.4 million americans living with the disease. a lot of people asking about the numbers all the time. there's a new report out from the alzheimers association saying an ageing baby boomer generation will cause that number to rapidly escalate. you could guess that. they say the number of cases will increase from 5.4 million to 16 million by the year 2050. it's devastating. it's a devastating brain disease that erases your ability to remember moments, experiences and people in your life. it destroys nerve cells that allow you to think clearly. it can wipe away your ability to function like walking and swallowing. the news isn't all grim. that's what we want to talk about. what's remarbleable is while there's no cure, we learned some brain changes begin 20 years before symptoms appear. therefore, there are things you can do to slow down the progression. i'm not talking about by months by potentially by years. joining me to talk about this from los angeles, dr. gary small. he's the director of uclas longevity center. good to see you. we have had a chance to talk about this before and you know how fascinated i am with this. you, yourself, spent 20 years researching how to preserve memory as we age. you say it is possible to stave off alzheimers disease. you say simple lifestyle changes make a difference, like exercise, for example. how so? >> genetics only accounts for part of the risk of developing alzheimers. choices we make every day have a major impact on how our brains age. physical exercise is the most compelling evidence that it can lower the risk for alzheimers. we are not saying we can prevent it in everyone but the goal is to stave off the symptoms, sometimes for years. for many people, that may mean never getting the symptoms during their lifetime. >> that's music to lots of people's ears, i imagine. i think you and i talked last time about puzzles and word games and stuff like that. there's research that's been conflicting on this. do they improve your memory or are they actually helping to delay the progression of alzheimers? >> brain games or any mental stimulation is associated with a lower rate of developing the disease. most experts recommend that people remain mentally engaged and cross train their brain, train but not strain their brain. there's not definitive evidence that doing cross word puzzles will protect your brain from alzheimer's disease. on the other hand, memory exercises are shown to help people with their memory. it can be sustained for many year ifs you learn the techniques. >> one of the things i started doing since we last spoke was acknowledging the stress i'm under in my life and knowing it's a challenge. i spend ten to 20 minutes a day to meditate. do you think i'm helping my brain? how does stress contribute to memory as we age? >> studies show that chronic stress can actually shrink the memory centers of the brain. experiments with humans injected with stress hormones show there's temporary impairment in learning and recall. chronic stress leads to depression that can increase a person's risk. anything we can do to manage stress better, to do simple exercises, breathing exercises, yoga, meditation and getting back to physical exercise is a wonderful way to manage stress. i recommend people take a brisk walk every day with a friend to get the cardiovascular conditioning, pumping oxygen and nutrients to the day. they are lowering the stress level every day. >> everyone thinks about this for themselves and parents. potentially optimistic news out there. dr. gary small, thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> one country with the lowest incidents of alzheimers is india. there's a notion that certain spices could prevent it. here is what i discovered while visiting one of the world's largest spice markets. this may be one of the largest spice markets in asia. all the carts and stalls piled high with spices. just being here reminds me very much of my mother. our house was always filled with the smell of spices everywhere. she cooked these tasty delicious foods served with a healthy dose of, it's good for you. she may be right. science is starting to catch up with my mom. spices with health benefits, cumin. it wards off prostate cancer and asthma as well. the star of the spice world, that title is tumerick. it's thought to boost brain power by warding off the plaques that cause alzheimers. a chili pepper is very, very hot. i have had them. if they are too hot for you, you can get the beneficial effects of the peppers without eating them. they put them into a body cream and use the active ingredient to help with arthritis. ginger, it can help reduce motion sickness. a health benefit of the spices we see here. i think i'm going to buy some. >> a blast from the past there in old delhi. lots of spices. a story that quite honestly was disturbing and disgraceful. u.s. soldiers intimidated, forced, coerced at the hands of the u.s. army. we'll explain. muscle lossfight with exercise and ensure muscle health. i've got revigor. what's revigor? 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[ male announcer ] it's chevy truck month. now get 0% financing for 72 months when you purchase a 2012 chevy silverado custom sport. or trade in your eligible vehicle to get a total value of $6,000. you'd use carbon fiber and machined aluminum, to make it more beautiful, and more durable. you'd use edge-to-edge gorilla glass for a stunning display in a more compact form. and you'd choose an intel® core i7™ processor for maximum processing power. everything that you could ever want in a laptop. introducing the dell xps 13 ultrabook™ everything. and more. ♪ everything. and more. imagine if you could always see life [music] in the best light. every time of day. outdoors, or in. transitions® lenses automatically filter just the right amount of light. so you see everything the way it is meant to be seen. maybe even a little better. experience life well lit, ask for transitions adaptive lenses. under the micro scope this morning, a story that is inexcusable. signed up for the army fresh out of high school at the height of the vietnam war. he said it was the right thing to do. they offered for him to go to a base in pittsburgh, he took it. he was becoming a human test suspect that was testing chemical weapons. the decision he made changed his life forever. when the 18-year-old heard about the chance to volunteer at the military base in maryland, he jumped at it. >> it was like a plum assignment. the idea was they would test new army field jackets, clothing, weapons, things of that nature, not drugs or chemicals. when i went there, it did not look like a military base, more like a hospital. >> describe it. what was it that you saw? >> everyone is in lab coats, some military doctors and some were civilian doctors. you were well aware you were a private and they were a captain and up. i expressed my concern right from the beginning. they took me aside and said you volunteered for this. if you don't do it, there's most likely prison and a dishonorable discharge. >> you were intimidated? >> yes. >> coerced? >> yes. >> forced? >> forced. >> you didn't sign up for this? >> no, not at all. >> the tests began almost as soon as he arrived at edgewood. >> sometimes it was an injection. other times a pill. >> they tell you what it is? >> the drugs or chemicals were referred to as agent one or agent two. one test i was involve with, i was out of it all day and that afternoon, i woke up with parkinson's symptoms immediately. >> you had tremor? >> aching in the limbs and arms. numbness. >> over here in the corner. lying down and looking at the wall. >> dr. james ketchum ran many of the experiments. that's him in this 1963 army film. he's one of the few still living. he declined to speak to us on camera, but he described his work in this deposition. >> we were looking for intelligent, healthy, well behaved, patriotic volunteers. >> in all, some 7,000 military volunteers or more were part of chemical tests at edgewood from 1955 to 1975 like the one shown here in this army film taken at edgewood. the military tested at least 250 chemical and biological agents during the cold war, including potentially lethal nerve agents incapacitating drugs like bz, tear gas, tranquilizers, narcotics and hallucinogens. >> lsd. >> this army film shows soldiers performing drills under the influence of lsd. >> the volunteers have several times. the medical officers participate in the test. >> they were ordered not to tell anyone what happened at edgewood. >> it stinks. >> he's suing the department of defense and veteran affairs on behalf of the veterans. what do you hope to get for them? >> nothing for themselves out of this case other than perhaps medical care. they are not going to get money. they were mistreated and they don't want to let it be swept under the rug and have everyone die and never see the light of day. it's why they are doing it. >> tim joseph has had par kinson's like symptoms. >> do you think it's related to the tests at edgewood? >> absolutely. the substances affect the same regions of the brain. they gave him such high doses that he ranged from overdose with one substance to the anecdote back and forth. he had to get a very powerful antipsychotic drug because he flipped out. >> at what point does an 18-year-old kid think this is for life? what they are doing to me is going to affect my health for the rest of my life? >> things were different then. you believed in your government and wouldn't believe they would give you something to harm you intentionally. >> i tell you, we wanted to talk about the lawsuit with the v.a. and defense department. they declined to be interviewed on camera but offered this statement. it is quote made it a priority to identify all service members exposed to biological substances. the v.a. has offered medical attention to them. they are expected to go to trial next year. coming up, a former model, former actress, young and healthy, then suddenly, she got hit by a car. if you don't think it can happen to you, neither did she. she tells the story with a sense of humor and brutal honesty as well. that's next. 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[ male announcer ] want great taste and whole grain oats that can help lower cholesterol? honey nut cheerios. you know, we all know people in their 20s or 30s who think they are invincible. hogan did as well, once upon a time. eight years ago, she was chasing a dream in new york city. at night, working in the city's hottest clubs. one day, crossing the street, she was hit by a car. she almost died. it's funny how things turn out sometimes. she has a book called "hot cripple." she's joining me now from new york. thanks so much. i really enjoyed the book. i appreciate you talking to us about it. >>it. >> oh, thank you. i'm glad you liked it. >> i know it's been some time now, but what do you remember first of all about getting hit by that car? >> the car was doing the wrong way down the one-way street going about 40 miles per hour. my head took out the entire windshield and then they slammed on the brakes and i went flying about ten feet. >> you had injuries to your neck, your back, your knee, a severe concussion, long-term effects. you were on your way to work. i know at the time you were trying to do various jobs. as someone who was so injured, what did you do to try and just live? >> well, i ended up on food stamps, medicaid, social security disability. i had to borrow money from these loan shark-type people that loan people money against their settlements because i couldn't work and i had to survive and try to get better. >> and i think it was your lawyer who suggested you sign up for food stamps and for medicaid. why didn't you think of that? was that something that had ever crossed your mind? >> it had never crossed your mind. i remember saying to your lawyer, isn't that for -- isn't medicaid for old people? he said, no, medicare is for seniors. medicaid is for poor people. it was not something that i knew a lot about. >> you're an actress, you're a writer. eventually you turned this whole experience of yours into a play. i'm just warning from a human resilient standpoint, you were beaten down by what happened. how did you decide, you know what? let us let's shift directions and turn this misery into something else? >> i had to figure out how to turn the lemons life had given me into lemon margaritas, with so to speak. and the only way i knew how to do that, being an actress, was to, you know, perform it. and so i wrote a one-woman show. i had never written anything before and i decided that, you know, i'd play 25 different characters, which is kind of zi schizophrenia and narcasicm all in one. i didn't know how it would go over. but it turned out to be a big hit. people would come up to me after the show examine talk about their only health or welling fair or health care nightmares. i ended up winning the best actress award. that was pretty nice. that was the only way i knew how to process. >> it's called hot cripple, a great book. i don't know how long it took you to come up with that. i appreciate you joining us. i'm glad you're doing much better. good luck. let's talk about sometime. >> okay. thank you so much. you have a good day. >> you, too. and up ns, a doctor who is offering his patients a taste of his own medicine. remember dr. scott zahn? last year, he took part in our fit challenge. this year, he decided to organize his own fit challenge. [ male announcer ] this is coach parker... whose non-stop day starts with back pain... and a choice. take advil now and maybe up to four in a day. or choose aleve and two pills for a day free of pain. way to go, coach. ♪ you might remember dr. scott zahn from last year's fit nation challenge. he joined our team in part to become a role model for his own patients. he shed 50 pounds and dropped three medications. and he's doing something else. he's ip expiring those around him to try, too. scott joins me now. you've got your own try challenge, which i love. where did you get the idea for that? >> well, we kind of stole it from you guys. and bringing it back home. >> i think it's great. and how hard was this? this idea, again, of trying to get other people to join you to do a triathlon. what was the reaction from your colleagues, your friends, your employees that are doing this with you? >> well, it actually wasn't that hard when they saw what had happened to me, the transformation i had made. so a lot of people were very excited about trying it themselves. we had about 50 employees that had applied. it was hard to just pick some of them to be part of our pack. >> it's interesting because you try and get people, obviously, from around the country to sign up for this and we have people submit videos. why did you hear from your coworkers that they were signing up for this? what seemed to be the overarching goal? >> the stories that i heard locally were a lot of the same ones that you guys saw at the national, the lucky seven for this year, you know, wanted to change their lives, wanted to kind of restart things. they used to be healthy but weren't any more, wanting to get off medications, lose weight, lead a healthier lifestyle. >> one of the things we talked about quite a bit is using this lifestyle as medication. you got off medications yourself and i think a few of your try athletes have a her of heart disease or have heart disease. how does that work out for them? what are they doing and what do you tell them as a doctor? >> as a doctor, i tell them that it's something that they can certainly do. look at me as an example, getting off of three medications and still able to stay off of them. the people back here, they're also having that same goal, to get off of medications, to get off cholesterol medication and blood pressure medication. so far with the weight loss they've seen, it looks like they're going on be able to do that, as well. >> i appreciate you playing it forward, so to speak, so the people that are watching can create their oh teams. nothing better than having a team of people who are pushing it along a little bit. >> and it's always better as a team. if you have people going forward as a team, you achieve your goals much better. >> i'm proud of you, dr. zahn. good luck. we'll see you soon. >> sounds good. have a great day, sanjay. stress, you know, we all have it. but internalize it, that's the problem. that can have a negative impact on your body. this has been studied with headaches, heartburn, even high blood pressure. so do you want to live life to 100? find some time today to laugh, a big belly laugh. it will be the most memorable part of your day and find a way to relieve that stress. even faking laughter has an overall healthful impact. my first novel monday morning is being published on tuesday. in it, i get a chance to pull back the curtains on medical mistakes at a hospital and how