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Infectious Theory of Alzheimer's Disease Draws Fresh Interest
21–30 of 96 posts
Re: Infectious Theory of Alzheimer's Disease Draws Fresh Interest
#22Alzheimer's is the cruelest of illnesses and the loved ones of the victims suffer as much as the victims. The allure of this theory, in my view, is that if you could somehow turn this into a treatment, people would give you whatever money you demanded for it. You want $200,000? We'll find it, somehow, just make Mom remember who I am, please.
This research could make it only more cruel. Proof that it is caused by a germ, that is may be catching, would suggest that sufferers should be isolated from healthy people to prevent spread of the infection. Id be happy if it were caused by bacteria or a virus. Those we can deal with. But what if it is a prion like bse? Could it linger in houses? Are nursing homes now a biohazard? Dark days.
The link between viruses and some cancers already points to some scary realities. Perhaps the kids shouldnt visit grandma in hospital. Imagine being a kid with cancer when your classmates learn that they might catch cancer from you? It could be like the early days of the AIDS panic again.
Re: Infectious Theory of Alzheimer's Disease Draws Fresh Interest
#23So does this throw the type three diabetes theory out the window?
Maybe it's a combination of different theories. Maybe having a certain virus with "type three" diabetes, with certain genetics triggers it.
Re: Infectious Theory of Alzheimer's Disease Draws Fresh Interest
#24Alzheimer's is the cruelest of illnesses and the loved ones of the victims suffer as much as the victims. The allure of this theory, in my view, is that if you could somehow turn this into a treatment, people would give you whatever money you demanded for it. You want $200,000? We'll find it, somehow, just make Mom remember who I am, please.
> The allure of this theory, in my view, is that if you could somehow turn this into a treatment, people would give you whatever money you demanded for it. You want $200,000? We'll find it, somehow, just make Mom remember who I am, please. Experts please correct me if I'm wrong, but even if this theory were to be proven true, how could it help anyone once the damage is done?
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Re: Infectious Theory of Alzheimer's Disease Draws Fresh Interest
#25Alzheimer's is the cruelest of illnesses and the loved ones of the victims suffer as much as the victims. The allure of this theory, in my view, is that if you could somehow turn this into a treatment, people would give you whatever money you demanded for it. You want $200,000? We'll find it, somehow, just make Mom remember who I am, please.
> The allure of this theory, in my view, is that if you could somehow turn this into a treatment, people would give you whatever money you demanded for it. You want $200,000? We'll find it, somehow, just make Mom remember who I am, please. Experts please correct me if I'm wrong, but even if this theory were to be proven true, how could it help anyone once the damage is done?
I won‘t speculate about the feasability in humans, but at least in a mouse model, it looks like it‘s possible to at least partially reverse some symptoms: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180214093712.h...
Re: Infectious Theory of Alzheimer's Disease Draws Fresh Interest
#26So, NPR still doesn't link properly from the data protection choice page to the plain text site...
Here is the plain text version:
Re: Infectious Theory of Alzheimer's Disease Draws Fresh Interest
#27Alzheimer's is the cruelest of illnesses and the loved ones of the victims suffer as much as the victims. The allure of this theory, in my view, is that if you could somehow turn this into a treatment, people would give you whatever money you demanded for it. You want $200,000? We'll find it, somehow, just make Mom remember who I am, please.
The amusing thing about your "cynicism" here is that $200,000 would be a substantial savings compared to what happens now, never mind the huge value an effective treatment would provide. In the US, the government (and thus society at large) bears much of the cost: http://act.alz.org/site/DocServer/2012_Costs_Fact_Sheet_vers...
And you have fallen into a different statistics trap. The number that matters isn't the cost of treating the patient. What matters is the increased lifetime costs of a paticular disease over the average. We all have to die of something. Diseases like lung cancer are cheap. The patients are either cured or dead relatively quickly. Demential is slow. Costs pile on for decades, starting often with forced early retirement long before formal medical costs are noticed. But we still have to normalize for the fact that, be it cancer, heart disease or dementia, most all of us will eventually need expensive care for some number of years.
Re: Infectious Theory of Alzheimer's Disease Draws Fresh Interest
#28Alzheimer's is the cruelest of illnesses and the loved ones of the victims suffer as much as the victims. The allure of this theory, in my view, is that if you could somehow turn this into a treatment, people would give you whatever money you demanded for it. You want $200,000? We'll find it, somehow, just make Mom remember who I am, please.
This research could make it only more cruel. Proof that it is caused by a germ, that is may be catching, would suggest that sufferers should be isolated from healthy people to prevent spread of the infection. Id be happy if it were caused by bacteria or a virus. Those we can deal with. But what if it is a prion like bse? Could it linger in houses? Are nursing homes now a biohazard? Dark days. The link between viruses…
It's almost certainly not infectious in that kind of way or you'd notice the nurses in the old folks homes getting it.
Re: Infectious Theory of Alzheimer's Disease Draws Fresh Interest
#29Alzheimer's is the cruelest of illnesses and the loved ones of the victims suffer as much as the victims. The allure of this theory, in my view, is that if you could somehow turn this into a treatment, people would give you whatever money you demanded for it. You want $200,000? We'll find it, somehow, just make Mom remember who I am, please.
> The allure of this theory, in my view, is that if you could somehow turn this into a treatment, people would give you whatever money you demanded for it. You want $200,000? We'll find it, somehow, just make Mom remember who I am, please. Experts please correct me if I'm wrong, but even if this theory were to be proven true, how could it help anyone once the damage is done?
I'm wondering, after the recent finding that herpes anti virals can reduce the chance of getting alzhemiers by up to 10x whether its worth trying them on my dad who's got some kind of dementia. Not sure if it's got a chance of working. The drugs are fairly cheap widely available and low side effects - the same stuff you take for cold sores. I guess the idea would be if you could control viral stuff the bodies normal repair mechanisms could help.
Re: Infectious Theory of Alzheimer's Disease Draws Fresh Interest
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
The amusing thing about your "cynicism" here is that $200,000 would be a substantial savings compared to what happens now, never mind the huge value an effective treatment would provide. In the US, the government (and thus society at large) bears much of the cost: http://act.alz.org/site/DocServer/2012_Costs_Fact_Sheet_vers...
And you have fallen into a different statistics trap. The number that matters isn't the cost of treating the patient. What matters is the increased lifetime costs of a paticular disease over the average. We all have to die of something. Diseases like lung cancer are cheap. The patients are either cured or dead relatively quickly. Demential is slow. Costs pile on for decades, starting often with forced early retiremen…
Nursing homes are among the cruelest and most in humane institutions, worse than prison in many ways. Anything that avoids nursing home days is worth it’s weight in gold.