Dementia-Stricken TV Host Thinks Early Mornings to Film Her Show Might Have Caused Her Illness

British TV presenter Fiona Phillips believes she developed early-onset dementia as a result of her 11 years presenting breakfast television. The 62-year-old former ITV breakfast host of GMTV between 1997 and 2008, who announced she had been diagnosed in 2022, used to get up around 3 a.m. for her shifts when she presented the show on ITV between 1997 and 2008. 

She told Woman&Home Magazine, “I ask myself why I got this dreadful disease. I wonder whether all the years of getting up so early when I was working on GMTV contributed to me getting Alzheimer’s so young.”

During the interview, Phillips told of how she had been put on a drug trial, a protocol she said had helped to slow down her symptoms. She said, “I’m taking part in a revolutionary drug trial that’s trying to find a cure. It involves a brand-new drug and a placebo, and I have no idea which one I’m on.

“When I went for my six-month check-up in October, they did cognitive tests to see where my brain was at, which showed that I was in the same place as I was the previous year.

“I’m hopeful that the drug is holding the disease where it is. I’d rather not have to be on the trial but I’m very grateful I am. There are risks, including bleeding on the brain, so I’m a guinea pig, but there’s a real chance it could help.”

According to Phillips, who spoke to Woman&Home during her cover shoot, “It’s taken so many members of my family and now it’s come for me, this bloody disease. But I am not my diagnosis, I am still me.”

She explained that she noticed that things began to change around two years ago when she started experiencing fatigue and confusion. Phillips recalls the first signs that something wasn’t right. However, since Phillips has also been suffering from “crippling anxiety and brain fog,” she chalked up these new symptoms to menopause symptoms as well. But she soon realized there was something else that wasn’t right.

Phillips explained, “Getting my diagnosis was devastating. It was about two years ago that I started to realise something wasn’t quite right. Initially, I put my symptoms, like getting confused and fatigued, down to menopause, even though I hadn’t suffered from them before. Menopause kind of covers everything, doesn’t it?”

“The main thing I had with menopause was this crippling anxiety and brain fog but I knew this was different,” she continued, admitting that she did not want to face the truth about the cause of the symptoms. 

“I knew it was in my family but I didn’t ever let myself think it might affect me too one day, so I refused to recognize the signs,” Phillips continued.

“I went on HRT, but that didn’t help, so I was referred to University College Hospital in London, and that was when I was told I had early-onset Alzheimer’s.” Previously, Phillips worked for the BBC as well as CNN. She is married to Martin Frizell, the editor of ITV’s daytime show This Morning.