Alzheimer’s disease expert

[ahlz-high-merz] a common form of dementia of unknown cause, usually beginning in late middle age, characterized by memory lapses, confusion, emotional instability, and progressive loss of mental ability.

<b>Dr. Vincent Fortanasce</b> is a world-renowned neurologist and rehabilitation specialist with forty years experience dealing with medical issues, including prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease. He has treated such notables including the Dali Lama, Pope John Paul II and Major League Baseball Hall of Famer, Tommy Lasorda.

Dr. Fortanasce has appeared on 60 Minutes, Dateline , the Today Show, and ABC and has been quoted in New Yorker, Times, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Review, USA Today, US News and World Report, to name a few. Find out more about his contributions…

Alzheimer's expert Doctor Vincent Fortanasce

Trained in psychiatry at the Institute of Living, a Yale Affiliate Hospital; in neurology at University of Southern California (USC); and in neurological and orthopedic rehabilitation at the prestigious Rancho Los Amigos Hospital; Dr. Vincent Fortanasce is a renowned bio-ethicist, author, and radio show host with twenty years experience dealing with medical issues, including prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease, on a national and international level. His rehabilitation center was ranked in the top 10 on the West Coast in 2003, and Dr. Fortanasce was selected as in the top 100 physicians in Los Angeles County and Best Physicians in the USA in 1998. Over the past decade, he has treated such notables as the Dali Lama, Pope John Paul II and Major League Baseball Hall of Famer, Tommy Lasorda.

 

In This Article:

About Dr. Vincent Fortanasce:
Helpful Articles By Dr. Fortanasce
Dr. Fortanasce’s Book

Dr. Fortanasce’s Videos

 

About Dr. Vincent Fortanasce

Dr. Fortanasce’s career is multifaceted having been a noted athlete and inducted into the Little League Hall of Fame with other notables such as President George W. Bush, Vice President Dan Quayle, and actors Kevin Costner and Tom Selleck. As an Olympic athlete, Dr. Fortanasce was a gold medal winner in the 1961 Junior Olympics. Also, he was a black belt international champion in karate, a member of the varsity wrestling and baseball team at Seton Hall, a tennis singles champion at Yale Medical, and a tennis doubles champion at USC Medical.

Dr. Fortanasce has appeared on 60 Minutes, the Diane Sawyer Show with Mel Gibson, CNNs Paula Zahn NOW, the Charles Grodin Show (debating Jack Kevorkian), Hard Ball with Chris Matthews, the Dr. Phil Show, Dateline, the Today Show, and ABC national news, as well as numerous cable and local programs. Frequently sought out as a medical expert, Dr. Fortanasce is a regular spokesperson for the California Medical Association at the Senate and Legislature assemblies. He’s been quoted in an assortment of publications including The New Yorker, Time Magazine, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Washington Review, USA Today, U. S. News and World Report, Sports Illustrated, and other well-respected newspapers and magazines. Dr. Fortanasce’s worldwide syndicated radio program, St. Joseph’s Radio Presents, Mother Angelica Network EWTN, has an audience of more than 170,000 and is heard throughout most of the United States, Canada, Australia, Africa, and Europe.

As an empathetic voice of reason in the debate over end of life issues, Dr. Fortanasce recently talked to the nation about the highly controversial stem cell debate in a televised interview for ABC national news, which was shown primetime on January 4, 2007. Drawing on a diverse background, including neurology, psychiatry, and brain rehabilitation, Dr. Fortanasce has been a Rehabilitation Director for twenty-five years and is an assistant professor for both the School of Biokinesiology and the Department of Neurology at the University of Southern California (USC).

As a board certified neurological rehabilitation specialist (board certified 1992, 77th neurologist to be certified in the United States), Dr. Fortanasce has also served as Director of the San Gabriel Valley Hospital Unit under Daniel Freeman Hospital in Los Angeles. He’s lectured widely from the Institute of Living at Yale to schools across the nation and was twice named Outstanding Lecturer of the Year at University of Southern California School of Medicine. Dr. Fortanasce has published numerous articles in professional and medical journals, along with writing four successful trade books: Life Lessons from Little League with Orel Hershiser (Doubleday), Life Lessons from Soccer (Simon & Schuster), the American Youth Soccer Official Organizational Handbook (Simon & Schuster), and Life Lessons from Little League Revisited with commentary from Tommy Lasorda and a forward by Mike Scoscia, manager of the world champion 2002 Angels (Doubleday).

Finally, Dr. Fortanasce is a compassionate husband, father, and healthcare specialist who has personally experienced the agony of Alzheimer’s disease in his own family. His father died from Alzheimer’s disease; his mother (age 95) is still fighting the Alzheimer’s disease. Dealing with his parents’ experience with Alzheimer’s Disease, Dr. Fortanasce was moved and inspired to write his newest book, The Anti-Alzheimer’s Prescription (Gotham August 2009).

He is one of the few medical authorities who can give this brain-robbing disease a clear reality check, blending his years of academia and clinical experience with real-world insight gained while coping with his own father’s Alzheimer’s Disease and his mother’s cognitive decline. His profound interest in improving the lives of the elderly has led him to protect “the right to life,” with persuasive and empathetic appearances about aging and Alzheimer’s disease on television and radio, in public debates, in lectures, and at private gatherings.

 

Dr. Vincent Fortanasce’s Articles:

The Anti-Alzheimer’s Prescription
fortanasce bio

“Your efforts have saved lives and brought comfort to many, and your steadfast devotion has earned you the trust and respect of your community.” — Former U.S. President Bill Clinton

“The brain has a marvelous power to muster up its own internal medicine to prevent Alzheimer’s disease. This book will show you how. I highly recommend The Anti-Alzheimer’s Prescription as good preventive medicine.” — William Sears, M.D., author of The Sears Parenting Library series

“Few authors, if any, who have written on this subject, have the broad training in neurology, psychiatry, and rehabilitation that Dr. Fortanasce has. His approach to “sentinel” risk factors – sleep and stress – is novel.” — Joseph P. Van Der Meulen, MD, past chairman of the department of neurology at the USC and Los Angeles County Hospital.

“Dr. Fortanasce’s Anti-Alzheimer’s Prescription is the perfect game plan to prevent Alzheimer’s disease. Both my wife and I know…we use it.” — Tommy Lasorda, Hall of Fame Major League Baseball Manager

Dr. Vincent Fortanasce, who has helped thousands of individuals over a prestigious medical career of nearly four decades as a world-renowned neurologist, psychiatrist, and rehabilitation specialist, presents a unique four-step program to prevent or delay Alzheimer’s disease at any age in a new, breakthrough book, The Anti-Alzheimer’s Prescription (Gotham, August 2008). Central to The Anti-Alzheimer’s Prescription are the novel concepts of the sentinel risk factors and the hormonal symphony that supply a unifying concept to his program.

His science-backed, medically-sound, patient-tested program is as follows:

Step One: The Harmonic Diet reverses one of the major causes of Alzheimer’s disease, insulin-peaking. It provides hormonal harmony to battle Alzheimer’s by increasing lean and decreasing fat body mass. Step Two: Exercise –brain boosters presents a revolutionary technique of strengthening exercises that maximize brain building while minimizing joint injury. The new Fort isometric formula can be done at home or the office. It stimulates growth hormone and brain stimulating factors while reducing stress. Step Three: Accentuating the brains reserve, brain-boosters of daily ‘neurobics’ presents novel ways to increase your brain size and memory as you age without need of computers or books. Step Four: Rest, recovery and meditation. The secret to reducing sentinel risk factors, sleeplessness and uncontrolled stress, the reason we fail. Learn how to maximize sleep and reduce stress by finding your “circle of quiet.”

Dr. Fortanasce calls this the DEAR method – D for Diet, E for exercise, A for accentuating the brain’s reserve, and R for relaxation.

The Anti-Alzheimer’s Prescription is UNIQUE because Dr. Fortanasce is the only author expert in psychiatry, neurology, and rehabilitation medicine. The sentinel risk factors originate from his psychiatric insights, the brain boosters from his training in neurology, the unique Fortanasce isometric exercise formula from his rehabilitation experience, and the diet from his extensive research of over 200 studies and articles.

Dr. Fortanasce was driven to find a cure for Alzheimer’s upon the agonizing experience of his father’s diagnosis of the mind-robbing disease, and shocking discovery of his family history in 2005. He recognized modern medicine’s failure and false promises. “There is no magic bullet…no pill to stop Alzheimer’s.” Through his research he discovered a comprehensive program to prevent or delay the onset of this memory-erasing disease.

Dr. Fortanasce says “There is a fate worse than death – it’s Alzheimer’s disease.” It is living alone in a nursing home your last seven years of life. Alzheimer’s disease has increased five fold in those over 65, and 12 fold in those under 65 in the past fifty years despite our medical advancement and tripling of our standard of living. It is a disease of the AFFLUENT SOCIETIES. Modern medicine has failed us. We have increased our life span, but not our brain span. If the 78 million Baby Boomers don’t take action, then we are on the verge of an epidemic that not only impacts individuals, friends, and family, but will burden our medical care system and bankrupt our social security system.”

The Anti-Alzheimer’s Prescription shows how to:

  • Prevent your risk of Alzheimer’s by as much as 70%.
  • Improve your brain-power despite its precipitous drop in agility after age 40 (a 50% loss in brain agility by age 50).
  • Determine your actual Brain Age vs. Chronological Age: a 25-year swing may exist.
  • Learn how to prevent Alzheimer’s disease, starting in childhood where it begins.
  • Learn what to eat but more importantly, how and in what proportions. Get Alzheimer’s-preventing recipes, and shop for optimal brain health.
  • Assess your risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease, including sentinel risk factors, extrinsic risk factors (obesity, hypertension, addictions), and intrinsic factors (age, genetics, prior head injury or heart attack).
  • How to pick the right doctor for you.

 

“While many physicians still believe that it’s pretty much set in stone whether or not you’ll get Alzheimer’s disease, I completely disagree!” he says. “I know that if you work on changing the risk factors you can control, you can reduce the chance of Alzheimer’s disease-even with aging and even with a family history of the disease.”

“His prevention regimen couldn’t come soon enough.” says Dr. Sears While most books regarding Alzheimer’s discuss the pursuit of an elusive cure, the use of dangerous supplements coping with a loved one with Alzheimer’s or providing a few games to engage the minds of seniors, none presents a clear-cut formula for preventing Alzheimer’s. Many hang on to a magic bullet, a pill. But the American Academy of Neurology says, despite the $2.6 billion spent to treat Alzheimer’s disease yearly, it may not extend the brain’s longevity by even a day.

“In 1980, I diagnosed, on average, one patient a month with dementia; now in some weeks, I may diagnose 6-10 patients. I truly believe that this dramatic increase in Alzheimer’s disease is a direct result of our SAD lifestyle – sedentary, stressed, and sleepless, aging with a diet full of carbs and transfats.”

He explains the cause for the modern epidemic by saying “The FDA’s high carb, insulin peaking dietary recommendations in the 70’s are at the heart of the Alzheimer’s epidemic today. Carbohydrates are to the brain what cigarettes are to the lungs. One leaves amyloid, the other, tar.”

He also explores:

  • Do you have the Alzheimer’s personality or genetic predisposition?
  • Why are women twice as likely to get Alzheimer disease?
  • The genetic test for Alzheimer’s disease – should you have it?
  • Why there’s no stem cell magic cure on the horizon.
  • Why the FDA may be the culprit for the Alzheimer’s epidemic.
  • How we lose 90% of our longevity hormones from ages 20-70 and how to reverse that trend.
  • How current medications are needlessly driving some seniors to bankruptcy.
  • Do you have the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease or is it simply stress?
  • How restaurants are promoting Alzheimer’s disease and how to tell your favorite restaurant to provide a brain-saving menu.
  • What supplements are a must, what are dangerous.
  • Why Alzheimer disease starts in childhood.
  • Why at 50 years old you may be in danger of losing your job to someone younger.
  • Why pharmaceutical companies and politicians give us unrealistic hope.

 

Dr. Fortanasce concludes that we can change our habits at any age and still have an impact on our brain’s fate. He especially wants “parents to establish healthy habits for their children so they can live long, healthy lives and includes a diet for them.”

“By far the best program I’ve seen. It is scientifically sound and patient-friendly.” — Dr. Con Stough, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Director of the Brain Sciences Institute at the Swinburne University

“You have worked tirelessly to maintain the highest standards of quality in the practice of medicine and service to the community. Your devotion and talent have earned you respect and admiration from colleagues and patients.” — Former California Governor Pete Wilson

“A well-researched self help technique for those concerned with Alzheimer’s disease prevention.” — Dr. Norman Namerow, Clinical Professor of Neurology at the UCLA School of Medicine

“If the Anti-Alzheimer’s prescription were a movie, Dr. Fortanasce would be given an Oscar for this innovative and ground breaking medical opus.” — Steve McEveety, the Oscar winning Producer of Brave Heart and The Passion of Christ.

 

Dr. Vincent Fortanasce’s Articles:

 

Dr. Vincent Fortanasce in Los Angeles Times Newspaper: Dr. Fortanasce Recalls Consultation with Pope John Paul II

Learn More About the Anti Alzheimer’s Prescription Book.

Dr. Vincent Fortanasce in Los Angeles Times Newspaper: Dr. Fortanasce Recalls Consultation with Pope John Paul II