by Chris Hemsworth has spoken about his health after discovering he is genetically predisposed to Alzheimer’s.
In a new National Geographic documentary that premiered earlier this week, Chris Hemsworth: An unforgettable road tripsees that avenger The actor embarks on a road trip around Australia to refresh the memory of his father Craig amid his early Alzheimer’s disease.
While he tried to help his father, Hemsworth also revealed during the documentary that he’s worried about his own health.
Three years ago, the actor underwent genetic testing during the National Geographic documentary series. Limitlesswhere he discovered that he carried two copies of the APOE4 gene. Carrying the gene is not a formal diagnosis, but it does put Hemsworth at risk of developing the disease.
“This has become a very important conversation in my world because I also have two copies of the gene that puts me in a higher risk category for Alzheimer’s,” he said in the recent documentary. “But at this point it’s not a problem and maybe never will be. That’s why I’m focusing a lot more on my dad at the moment.”
He continued, explaining that his only plan was to focus on the present.
“I feel like it’s hopefully too far away,” the actor said of when Alzheimer’s symptoms would appear. “I’d rather just keep living.”
Hemsworth previously opened up about his health in an interview Vanity Fair last April when he addressed rumors that he might retire from acting due to the possibility of developing Alzheimer’s.
“It really pissed me off because it felt like I had become vulnerable through something personal and shared that,” he told the outlet about the headlines, which weren’t true. “No matter how many times I said, ‘This is not a death sentence,’ the story revealed that I was suffering from dementia and was rethinking my life, retiring, and so on.”
Hemsworth previously spoke to Vanity Fair in 2022, where he spoke more about what it was like to receive the news about his genetic predisposition to the disease.
“They took all my blood work and ran a series of tests. The plan was to tell me all the results on camera and then talk about how to improve this and that,” he said at the time.
“And Peter Attia, who is the longevity doctor in this episode and runs a lot of the show, called [show creator] Darren [Aronofsky] and said, “I don’t want to tell him this on camera.” “We need to have an open-air conversation and see if he even wants this to be on the show.”
“It was pretty shocking because he called me and told me.”
Hemsworth explained that he certainly didn’t expect to receive such “intense” news, as the show was originally intended as a “fun” way to explore “longevity.”
However, he said, “It was a really good catalyst to get me involved in whatever I needed to do, whether it was prevention or management.”
