The television presenter Fiona Phillips has disclosed she has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and is undergoing trials for a new drug that scientists hope could slow or reverse the illness.
The 62-year-old said she was informed she had the illness 18 months ago, having had months of brain fog and anxiety. Her mother, father, uncle and grandparents had Alzheimer’s, she said.
Phillips, who co-hosted the ITV programme GMTV for a decade from the late 1990s, told the Daily Mirror: “This disease has ravaged my family and now it has come for me.
“And all over the country there are people of all different ages whose lives are being affected by it – it’s heartbreaking. I just hope I can help find a cure that might make things better for others in the future.”
She added: “It’s something I might have thought I’d get at 80. But I was still only 61 years old. I felt angrier than anything else because this disease has already impacted my life in so many ways; my poor mum was crippled with it, then my dad, my grandparents, and my uncle. It just keeps coming back for us.”
Phillips is married to the This Morning editor Martin Frizell, 64, and has two children Nat, 24, and Mackenzie, 21.
She hopes that sharing her story will address the stigma around the disease and that the clinical trial could revolutionize how Alzheimer’s is treated.
“There is still an issue with this disease that the public thinks of old people, bending over a stick, talking to themselves,” she said. “But I’m still here, getting out and about, meeting friends for coffee, going for dinner with Martin and walking every day.”
Clinical trials for drugs that could slow the progress of the disease are taking place at University College hospital in north-west London. Phillips has been taking a drug called Miridesap, which is administered three times a day with tiny needles and is among several being researched at University College London hospitals trust.
The drug is in its third year of assessment and scientists are still researching any side-effects or safety issues. However, as about half the trialists are on a placebo drug, Frizell said they “don’t know if Fiona is on the real drug or a placebo”.
He added: “It’s been weeks now and I like to think her condition is stabilizing but I am too close to know really; that could just be my wishful thinking.”
Phillips added: “But even if it isn’t helping me, these tests will be helping other people in the future so I just have to keep going.”
In England, it is estimated that about 676,000 people have dementia. In the whole of the UK, the number of people with the disease is estimated at 850,000.
