The idea I won’t be able to remember my wife, my kids, is my biggest fear – Chris Hemsworth shares health revelation.
Chris Hemsworth has discovered he is genetically predisposed to Alzheimer’s, causing him to confront his ‘own mortality.’
The 39-year-old made the revelation in a new interview with Vanity Fair promoting his new Disney+ show Limitless about health and fitness.
After having bloodwork done for the program, he was informed he is ‘between eight and 10 times’ likelier to develop Alzheimer‘s than the general population, because he is one of only two to three percent of people with two copies of the gene APOE4.
‘Yeah, there was an intensity to navigating it,’ he reflected. ‘Most of us, we like to avoid speaking about death in the hope that we’ll somehow avoid it.’
The Thor star added: ‘We all have this belief that we’ll figure it out. Then to all of a sudden be told some big indicators are actually pointing to this as the route which is going to happen, the reality of it sinks in. Your own mortality.’
Playing on Chris’ stardom through superhero movies, Limitless follows him as he pushes up against the boundaries of what his body can do.
He will be seen on the Disney+ program pursuing various physical goals, such as what Variety reports was 40lbs of weight gain for a Thor film.
The bloodwork he got in aid of the show resulted in the bombshell news that he is several times likelier than the general population to get Alzheimer’s, a degenerative brain condition characterized in part by memory loss.
However there are evidently a number of steps that people in his position can take to reduce their level of risk, such as ensuring they get a good night’s sleep, curbing their alcohol intake and cutting out cigarettes, according to the CDC.
As a result, Chris reacted to the news of his own predisposition to Alzheimer’s by cultivating a healthier lifestyle.
‘For me, the positive of it was like: “Right, if I didn’t know this information, I wouldn’t have made the changes I made,”‘ he said.
‘I just wasn’t aware of any of it, so now I feel thankful that I have in my arsenal the sort of tools to best prepare myself and prevent things happening in that way.’