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Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)

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Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)

#11

Post by lisper »

acangiano wrote: post #8

Reading this will rightfully scare the bejeezus out of us. The question is, what can we do? Alzheimer is sometimes referred to as diabetes type 3. Cutting out sugar and eating a low carb diet is a good precaution. It likely wouldn't have helped Jo, but it might save quite a few of us from this scary outcome.

> Alzheimer is sometimes referred to as diabetes type 3.

Just because it is referred to that way doesn't mean that it is actually the case.

The hypothesis that AD=Diabetes has been around for at least ten years [1]. If it were true, I would have expected to see some results by now about how diabetes interventions can slow the advance of AD, if not prevent and/or reverse it entirely. AFAICT there have been no such results. That casts the hypothesis into serious doubt IMHO.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2769828/

Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)

#12

Post by cowmoo728 »

iopuy wrote: post #10
acangiano wrote: post #8

Reading this will rightfully scare the bejeezus out of us. The question is, what can we do? Alzheimer is sometimes referred to as diabetes type 3. Cutting out sugar and eating a low carb diet is a good precaution. It likely wouldn't have helped Jo, but it might save quite a few of us from this scary outcome.

Diabetes type 3!?!?! I have never heard this but I'll sure as he'll keep this in mind now.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3045545/

"Epidemiological and basic science evidence suggest a possible shared pathophysiology between type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and Alzheimer's disease (AD). It has even been hypothesized that AD might be ‘type 3 diabetes’. The present review summarizes some of the evidence for the possible link, putative biochemical pathways and ongoing clinical trials of antidiabetic drugs in AD patients."

If they are linked by a common factor, it makes me scared to think of how many alzheimer's patients there will be in 40 years.

Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)

#13

Post by avip »

acangiano wrote: post #8

Reading this will rightfully scare the bejeezus out of us. The question is, what can we do? Alzheimer is sometimes referred to as diabetes type 3. Cutting out sugar and eating a low carb diet is a good precaution. It likely wouldn't have helped Jo, but it might save quite a few of us from this scary outcome.

You really need to cite such a claim. Thanks.

Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)

#14

Post by hackandtrip »

Research is making really big step, we all hope for a cure of this and other plague that are ruining our lives.

I often ask myself if the nature of the disease itself make it even worse: AIDS was the worst in its age, people went in streets asking for a cure, now we made huge steps, the same it's happening with cancer, but Alz make everything different: the sick can't make his voice heard, he has no knowledge of what's happening, family, with an enormous economic sacrifice, try to take care of the sick, and their voices become silent.

I'm seeing this for the second time in my family and I can say that I can fully understand who rely in special clinics - Switzerland is famous for this - to stop their life once the disease make them not self-sufficient. A nice view of this situation is given by "Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die".

Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)

#16

Post by Retric »

39283 wrote: post #5

Diseases which affect your brain are quite bizarre in terms of quantifying the effects. I have some lesion damage from multiple sclerosis, but there's very little information available on what effects, if any I'd be able to identify. It's quite a bizarre experience to have physical damage that manifests in such a way that the entire outcome is subjective (was not putting clothes in the dryer an effect of Alzheimers?…

The Brain has a fair amount of redundancy and adaptability, but you use that to deal wide a huge range of issues. So, up to a point you simply get worse side effects from aging, concussions, drug use etc. Making a list of symptoms hard to generalize.

Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)

#18

Post by linkmotif »

symmitchry wrote: post #17

This sounds insane to say, if you haven't lived with a parent or family member with dementia, but if that happens to me I really hope I have the nerve to kill myself.

Not insane at all. I’m with you on this. I grew up with my grandma, who lived with my family. She was a cool, collected, highly stable person who worked her whole life as a doctor. I guess this sounds really heavy thinking about it now, but it didn’t seem so at the time when she told me once when I was a teenager that if she ever had dimentia that I should kill her somehow. She was of course to some extent trying to articulate her feelings on the severity of the condition, but I did get the concrete sense that she was also being literally serious. Fortunately she got cancer around the same time she got dimentia, because I’m not sure I could have done it.

Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)

#19

Post by gnarcoregrizz »

acangiano wrote: post #8

Reading this will rightfully scare the bejeezus out of us. The question is, what can we do? Alzheimer is sometimes referred to as diabetes type 3. Cutting out sugar and eating a low carb diet is a good precaution. It likely wouldn't have helped Jo, but it might save quite a few of us from this scary outcome.

I found this study that a ketogenic diet improved some cognitive scores in some patients with mild alzheimer's [1]. The diet is also sometimes prescribed for intractable epilepsy [2]. There is also a link between epilepsy and alzheimer's, with some AD patients having seizures as the disease progresses (like in Jo's case).

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19664276

2. https://www.epilepsy.com/learn/treating-seizures-and-epileps...

Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)

#20

Post by mkrecny »

lisper wrote: post #11
acangiano wrote: post #8

Reading this will rightfully scare the bejeezus out of us. The question is, what can we do? Alzheimer is sometimes referred to as diabetes type 3. Cutting out sugar and eating a low carb diet is a good precaution. It likely wouldn't have helped Jo, but it might save quite a few of us from this scary outcome.

> Alzheimer is sometimes referred to as diabetes type 3. Just because it is referred to that way doesn't mean that it is actually the case. The hypothesis that AD=Diabetes has been around for at least ten years [1]. If it were true, I would have expected to see some results by now about how diabetes interventions can slow the advance of AD, if not prevent and/or reverse it entirely. AFAICT there have been no such res…

We're only now just waking up to the reality that type-2 diabetes can be reversed w/ carbohydrate restriction, even though the data to support that has been around for decades. I don't think a decade is an unusual latency for the medical institution to lay idle on.
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