captioning sponsored by cbs this is the cbs evening news with scott pelley. pelley: good evening, alzehimer s disease cannot be cured butting k it be prevented. today the government announced a major study to test a prevention drug in just one family. prevention is almost impossible to measure because scientists can never know which healthy people will develop the disease. but now they have found one family in which nearly everyone develops alzehimer s diseases. more than five million americans have alzheimer s or another form of dementia. that s expected to triple over the next 40 years as the population ages. the annual cost of care now $200 billion could hit a trillion dollars. the obama administration explained a strategy today to find a treatment by 2025. wyatt andrews has our story on the new clinical trial designed to find out whether alzheimer s can be stopped before it starts. reporter: researchers will focus this clinical trial on patients near medellin, colom
alzheimer s by the age of 50. the patients will get shots of the leading experimental drug called crenezumab to target what most scientists think is the root cause of the disease the buildup deep in the brain of the toxic amyloid protein, highlighted here in red. if the family members get no buildup of the protein scientists hope no alzheimer s. we believe it s time to launch a new era in alzheimer s research. reporter: dr. eric reiman is the lead researcher for the trial. what s new about this research approach? most but not all researchers believe the accumulation of amyloid plays a critical role in the development of alzehimer s disease and if that s right and if we start early enough we may have a way to stop the disease in its tracks before people develop symptoms. reporter: another possible outcome would also be a break through. if the drug stops the amyloid buildup and the patient still gets alzheimer s, researchers will learn that amyloid is not the cause. th
captioning sponsored by cbs this is the cbs evening news with scott pelley. pelley: good evening, alzehimer s disease cannot be cured butting k it be prevented. today the government announced a major study to test a prevention drug in just one family. prevention is almost impossible to measure because scientists can never know which healthy people will develop the disease. but now they have found one family in which nearly everyone develops alzehimer s diseases. more than five million americans have alzheimer s or another form of dementia. that s expected to triple over the next 40 years as the population ages. the annual cost of care now $200 billion could hit a trillion dollars. the obama administration explained a strategy today to find a treatment by 2025. wyatt andrews has our story on the new clinical trial designed to find out whether alzheimer s can be stopped before it starts. reporter: researchers will focus this clinical trial on patients near medellin, colom