Did the ancient Greeks and Romans experience Alzheimer’s?

USC’s Caleb Finch found that ancient Greeks made few mentions of anything akin to mild cognitive impairment. (Photo/Panos Karapanagiotis, iStock)

Medical texts from 2,500 years ago rarely mention severe memory loss, suggesting today’s widespread dementia stems from modern environments and lifestyles, a new USC analysis shows.

But a new analysis of classical Greek and Roman medical texts suggests that severe memory loss — occurring at epidemic levels today — was extremely rare 2,000 to 2,500 years ago, in the time of Aristotle, Galen and Pliny the Elder.

The USC-led research, published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, bolsters the idea that Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias are diseases of modern environments and lifestyles, with sedentary behavior and exposure to air pollution largely to blame.

“The ancient Greeks had very, very few — but we found them — mentions of something that would be like mild cognitive impairment,” said first author Caleb Finch, a University Professor at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. “When we got to the Romans, and we uncovered at least four statements that suggest rare cases of advanced dementia — we can’t tell if it’s Alzheimer’s. So, there was a progression going from the ancient Greeks to the Romans.”

Leave a Comment