163: The Relaxback UK Show with Mike Dilke - Episode 163163: The Relaxback UK Show with Mike Dilke - Episode 163
UK Health Radio Podcast
Neuroscientist Sasha Filbert talks with host Mike Dilk about dementia, biomarkers and huge UK health datasets being used to improve early diagnosis. They also touch on lifestyle factors, including alcohol use, and how future simple tests might help people understand and manage their dementia risk.
27:52•14 Apr 2026
Brain Health, Dementia Risk and the Future of Simple Tests
Episode Overview
- Dementia is a set of symptoms caused by different diseases, with Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia being the most common.
- Our Future Health uses anonymous blood and health data from millions of UK volunteers to search for early markers of disease.
- Biomarkers in blood, brain scans and spinal fluid may allow earlier and more accurate dementia diagnosis in the future.
- Healthy lifestyle choices, including exercise, good diet and limiting smoking and drinking, may reduce dementia risk even when genetics are unfavourable.
- Researchers aim for simple tests, possibly finger-prick or basic MRI scans, but there are still no disease-modifying treatments approved in the UK.
“Around one in two of us will be affected by dementia in our lifetime – either getting it ourselves or caring for someone who has it.”
How do people manage co-occurring mental and physical health issues while recovering? This chat on The Relaxback UK Show zooms in on dementia, early diagnosis and why your lifestyle choices today – including alcohol use – could shape your brain health decades down the line. Neuroscientist Dr Sasha Filbert from the University of Manchester joins host Mike Dilk to break down what dementia actually is.
Rather than one single disease, he explains it as a collection of symptoms like memory problems, speech difficulties and movement issues, most commonly caused by Alzheimer’s disease or vascular dementia. When he drops the line that “around one in two of us will be affected by dementia in our lifetime”, it lands with real weight. The episode spends a lot of time on Our Future Health, a huge UK research programme where millions of volunteers give blood and health data.
Dr Filbert explains how anonymous blood samples can be used to hunt for “biomarkers” – molecules and proteins that might signal dementia years before symptoms start. He talks about known proteins linked to Alzheimer’s, how mass spectrometry lets researchers scan thousands of molecules at once, and why he’s especially interested in vascular dementia, where far less is understood.
You’ll also hear a grounded chat about the pros and cons of early testing, the risk of anxiety when people find out they’re at higher risk, and the role of lifestyle changes like eating well, exercising and cutting back on smoking and drinking to reduce that risk.
Dr Filbert is honest that there’s no silver bullet yet and no disease-modifying treatments currently approved in the UK, but he’s optimistic that blood tests and simple MRI scans could soon sharpen early diagnosis. If brain health, ageing and how your current choices might affect future independence are on your mind, this is one to queue up and think about what changes you’d actually be willing to make.
Do you want to link to this podcast?
Get the buttons here!
More From This Show
The latest episodes from the same podcast.
Related Episodes
Similar episodes from other shows in the catalogue.