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Why I’m Digging Deep Into Alzheimer’s

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Re: Why I’m Digging Deep Into Alzheimer’s

#51

Post by photoJ »

bflesch wrote: post #20

It's great to see more investment into this disease. When my grandma fought Alzheimer's over the span of a decade it was very striking to see that the effect of a lack of hydration and the disease itself kind of overlapped. When she had a particularly bad day we used to give her a saline IV and you could immediately notice how she cleared up and regained her brain powers after each IV. I'm not up to date on current r…

Dehydration and an electrolyte imbalance (in particular lack of sodium) causes both "foggyness" and general confusion in people of all ages. In otherwise healthy American's its rare to have a lack of sodium, but in the ketosis community especially at the start, its something even they have to pay attention to. This is part of the problem with trying treat such diseases is that there are many things co-occurring. Along the same lines, lack of magnesium is very common. Both coffee and booze leach it from ones system, many american adults are encouraged to take a supplement. Lethargy(i.e. lack of focus), rather than disorientation tends to be symptomatic.

Re: Why I’m Digging Deep Into Alzheimer’s

#52

Post by bshimmin »

bitL wrote: post #48

FYI, taking sauna 4x a week seems to lower the risk of developing Alzheimer significantly (at least in Finland). I can also observe myself that taking hot phase 4-5x for 10-15 minutes followed by 2 minutes cold immersion every time in roughly 1.5 hours clears my brain/senses. Maybe the sweating helps overloaded brain drainage as well? I think Bezos must be applying some of these hacks on himself; he got recently in s…

Bill might think about the same as he is visibly deteriorating and his liver seems to be not functioning well (spots on his skin everywhere)

I think he's always had freckles, no?

Re: Why I’m Digging Deep Into Alzheimer’s

#53

Post by koolba »

StudentStuff wrote: post #28
bflesch wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think it makes more sense to monitor and gather data on what comes out of your body instead of monitoring what goes into it(e.g. all smartwatches/diets). I'd like to one day have a room-sized analysis unit which screens feces/urine of all attached toilets and performs various tests on it. Analysis results could be assigned to individuals based on the DNA footprint. It could immediately tell you that your sugar…

It'd be great to be able to pull glucose, hydration and more out of urine samples real time, so long as we stay away from say live telemetry to insurers or something like SmartPipe[1] it'd be enormously beneficial. 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ

> ... so long as we stay away from say live telemetry to insurers ...

Consumers have demonstrated that they're willing to save $5-20 a month in exchange for sending gym checkins[1], daily steps counts, or digital monitoring of their driving habits[2] uploaded to their insurers.

I don't think it'll ever be mandatory but I can see a day where the "discount" for agreeing to continuous monitoring and data upload is so great that it'd be cost prohibitive for the average consumer to not be a part of it. On the personal health front I think the biggest stopper is the cost of the data collection devices. That's what's relegated it to higher end targets like diabetic monitors (for now).

[1]: https://www.bluecrossmn.com/healthy/public/personal/home/liv...

[2]: https://www.progressive.com/auto/discounts/snapshot/#2

Re: Why I’m Digging Deep Into Alzheimer’s

#54

Post by yitchelle »

Just relistening through some of RadioLab's podcast. I came across this apt episode about Gamma Light Therapy. Adding it to the mix. When I listen to this episode, I had a hint of hope for my dad who is suffering dementia in the past few years.

http://www.radiolab.org/story/bringing-gamma-back/

Re: Why I’m Digging Deep Into Alzheimer’s

#55

Post by jonwachob91 »

bflesch wrote: post #31
StudentStuff wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be great to be able to pull glucose, hydration and more out of urine samples real time, so long as we stay away from say live telemetry to insurers or something like SmartPipe[1] it'd be enormously beneficial. 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ

In health this would be massively beneficial. Imagine a digital hospital where you monitor excrements for every patient during their stay. When my father was in the stroke unit recently they had him drink a shitload of water and they monitored water intake by making him write down how much he drank and when. Stupid thing is I need a 100M exit first to sponsor this kind of thing.

I'm obviously not familiar with your dad's specifics, BUT hospitals will sometimes require tracking of fluid intake to help track kidney function post stroke. It's not the most common thing, so a physician would have needed supporting evidence to indicate the potential of kidney failure. Just something to keep in mind :)

Re: Why I’m Digging Deep Into Alzheimer’s

#57

Post by gk1 »

ggambetta wrote: post #29
projectramo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the same self interest that made him spend vast sums of money and personal time on sub Saharan Africa. He should only get credit for things that couldn’t possibly help him personally.

I strongly disagree - he should get credit for all the good things he does, regardless of the reasons . Within reason - the end doesn't justify the means.

The person you're responding to was being sarcastic.

Re: Why I’m Digging Deep Into Alzheimer’s

#58

Post by gerbilly »

Filligree wrote: post #12
maxst wrote: post #5

>Most of the major pharmaceutical companies continue to pursue the amyloid and tau pathways. Dementia Discovery Fund complements their work by supporting startups as they explore less mainstream approaches to treating dementia. That's very encouraging. Because what if it's something else?

The amyloid and tau pathways are our best hope of finding a simple solution, something we can reasonably fix with drugs. If it's something else, then chances are good it'll be far harder to fix, perhaps even requiring genetic engineering or medical nanotechnology. Finding out is still valuable, of course...

> our best hope of finding a simple solution

You hit the nail on the head, and I think you bring up an interesting point.

Ask anyone who has a condition stigmatized by the medical community, say chronic fatigue, about how the medical system reacts to their symptoms.

You will find that in a many cases, doctors will try to deny the existence of the disease. I think this is because it is so complicated as to elude a 'simple solution'.

Perhaps our doctors and medical researchers, are too predisposed to look for simple solutions in these cases, because that approach worked so well in the past.

Maybe we've picked all the low hanging fruit, and now it's time to tackle the tougher problems, using a more system-wide approach.

We seem to be stuck in the mindset of: single disease/single cause/single solution.

Re: Why I’m Digging Deep Into Alzheimer’s

#59

Post by jmkni »

tzahola wrote: post #13
vasco wrote: post #8

Disable the shitty auto-pausing of youtube video on scroll by pasting this on the console: getEventListeners(document.getElementById('tgnbody')).scroll.forEach(function(el){document.getElementById('tgnbody').removeEventListener("scroll", el.listener)})

Thanks! I'd love to have a browser extension which automatically augments shitty websites with community-sourced javascript snippets. E.g. you'd visit idk Forbes.com, and saw that the site is unusable b/c of some shitty undismissable paywall overlay. You "fix" the issue with a few lines of JS, and then upload it via the extension. After going through some kind of vetting/review, the extension will automatically fetch…

I'm using Just Read on Chrome, if you're on a shitty website hit the Just Read button and it pulls out the text, works pretty well.

Re: Why I’m Digging Deep Into Alzheimer’s

#60

Post by jonwachob91 »

Beltiras wrote: post #38
_Marak_ wrote: post #11

It's interesting to note that tetrahydrocannabinol and other compounds found in marijuana may reduce the amount of beta amyloid in the brain. Beta amyloid is commonly thought to cause Alzheimer's disease. see: https://www.nature.com/articles/npjamd201612 Last I heard in the US, the Federal government was still making it difficult to run clinical trials for Alzheimer's using marijuana. I think any federally funded med…

It's more complex than just that. At CTAD just a couple of weeks ago there was a presentation on drugs that managed to reduce AB (biomarker was inferred by a PET scan) and it did not result in increased cognition.

> (biomarker was a PET scan)

A PET scan is not a biomarker. The Amyloid Beta (AB)* is the biomarker, the PET w/ tracer (such as the Pittsburg Compound Beta) are used to detected the biomarker.

It's also important to note that Amyloid Beta is only part of the problem. Neurofibrillary Tangles (NFT) are the primary biomarker of Alzheimer's Dementia, and happen inside the neurons. NFTs disable to ability for neurons to communicate with each other, and lead to the death of disabled neurons.

It is completely possible that we can't reverse AD, but can only slow it down / halt progression.

*Was it AB40 / AB42 / or a different Amyloid Beta?

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