Memory, the business of fear | France 2 | Envoyé Spécial

Losing their memory is the illness that most French people fear after cancer (IPOs survey June 2008). It is estimated there are 850,000 French people affected by the illness, of whom 6% are over the age of 65. As a consequence the least loss of memory sends shivers down the spine. Losing your keys, forgetting your aunt’s first name or the name of the film you saw yesterday: at once the specter of Alzheimer arises and there are many people who are trying to sell us their solutions. Memory has become a colossal business! The pharmaceutical industry, specialists in cerebral software and neuron coaching” share this exploding market: students, stressed-out executives or active seniors are all trying to maintain their memory these days. It’s a real race to perform. One of the best selling video games in the world is a famous “brain-training program”, created by a Japanese doctor, that has sold more than thirty million copies around the world, of which nearly two million were in France. In France the market for complementary diet products is worth more than a billion Euros and there are hundreds of pills to “increase your memory capacity” (at 60 Euros a box). “Brain coaching” courses are mushrooming (at 300 Euros for two days): anything goes when it comes to boosting your memory and your neurons. But are these new products and brain training methods really effective and harmless? An investigation into the people trying to make money out of our fear of losing our memory.”