Alzheimer's Cure: How Seth Rogen, Snoop Dogg And Other Celebrities Are Fighting To Stop The Disease

Seth Rogen, his wife Lauren Miller Rogen and a host of other celebrities including rapper Snoop Dogg teamed up to raise $1.6 million for Alzheimer’s at an event Saturday for the couple’s charity organization. The charity has raised $5 million since its inception in 2012.

The fifth annual Hilarity for Charity variety show at the Hollywood Palladium was hosted by Snoop Dogg and featured an assortment of special guest performers. The rapper auctioned off a hand-rolled blunt for $1,000, the New York Daily News reported. The Los Angeles Dodgers’ Howie Kendrick announced a $100,000 donation on behalf of his team.

Seth Rogen and Lauren Miller Rogen founded Hilarity for Charity to “inspire change and raise awareness of Alzheimer’s disease among the millennial generation.” “We realized there was no one my age talking about it,” said Rogen in an interview with Media Planet. “I was in a position to do so, so we did. Talking about it is at least the first step.”

The $1.6 million raised at Saturday’s event will go toward families struggling with Alzheimer’s, support groups, and cutting edge research.

The disease is personal for Lauren Miller Rogen. She lost both of her grandparents to the disease when she was young. Her mother was then diagnosed at the age of 55.

“You kind of assume it’s how it is in movies and TV from the 80’s, which is someone is forgetful and everyone laughs and something cute happens and they don’t know where their keys are and everyone laughs,” said Rogen. “That’s not at all what it was like.”

More than 5 million Americans are currently living with Alzheimer’s. Another person develops it every 66 seconds. It’s the sixth leading cause of death in the US and the only cause of death among the country’s top ten with no way to prevent, cure, or even slow down its progression. Last year, family and friends of people with Alzheimer’s provided an estimated 1.8 billion hours of unpaid care to those living with the disease, a number Hilarity for Charity wants to drastically cut. If the disease progresses as it currently is, as many as 16 million Americans will be living with Alzheimer’s by 2050