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The Case for Transmissible Alzheimer's Grows

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: The Case for Transmissible Alzheimer's Grows

#81

Post by IAmGraydon »

joejerryronnie wrote: post #48
coldcode wrote: post #9

The more we study the human body, the more questions we get. I wonder if some future Dr. McCoy centuries from now will we us as we do medicine of two centuries ago. We can go to other planets and invent new tech every day, but the body still holds a ton of mysteries.

Almost certainly. Medical professionals of the future will look at today’s cutting edge med tech the way we view blood-letting and balancing out the body’s humours.

Unlikely. Blood letting and balancing out the body’s humors don’t work. At all. We are quite certain that today’s medical technology works. It could work better, but we can indeed cure ailments that were once considered incurable. Medical professionals of the future will look back on today’s medicine the way we look back on pioneers of science who helped us get where we are today. To say otherwise is a complete insult of the medical professionals who have dedicated their lives to developing better medical technology.

Re: The Case for Transmissible Alzheimer's Grows

#82

Post by lymeeducator »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #81
joejerryronnie wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost certainly. Medical professionals of the future will look at today’s cutting edge med tech the way we view blood-letting and balancing out the body’s humours.

Unlikely. Blood letting and balancing out the body’s humors don’t work. At all. We are quite certain that today’s medical technology works. It could work better, but we can indeed cure ailments that were once considered incurable. Medical professionals of the future will look back on today’s medicine the way we look back on pioneers of science who helped us get where we are today. To say otherwise is a complete insul…

Blood letting does work for some conditions like "hemochromatosis", in many cases a result of genetics + iron intake. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_overload

Re: The Case for Transmissible Alzheimer's Grows

#83

Post by TheSoftwareGuy »

nonbel wrote: post #47

An increase in amyloids will be observed any time cells are malfunctioning for whatever reason. They are the most thermodynamically stable structure that polypeptides can form, and require constant housekeeping to prevent. Accumulation of amyloids is like failing to taking out the trash in your house. Afaik, there has never been a disease state checked for amyloids that failed to be associated with them (heart diseas…

That's fascinating! I wonder if we could ever get to a point where people regularly can check their amyloid levels to see if they are becoming ill

Re: The Case for Transmissible Alzheimer's Grows

#85

Post by b_tterc_p »

nonbel wrote: post #47

An increase in amyloids will be observed any time cells are malfunctioning for whatever reason. They are the most thermodynamically stable structure that polypeptides can form, and require constant housekeeping to prevent. Accumulation of amyloids is like failing to taking out the trash in your house. Afaik, there has never been a disease state checked for amyloids that failed to be associated with them (heart diseas…

Is it fair to infer based on this that they are a symptom and not a cause? Or at least, not a primary cause, though their presence may crate a feedback loop?

Re: The Case for Transmissible Alzheimer's Grows

#86

Post by b_tterc_p »

manmal wrote: post #72
SubiculumCode wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or perhaps infection by prions by metal dental equipment.

Unlikely because only eye and neuro tissue would carry prions for contamination of equipment, right? Dental equipment should never come in contact with such tissue.

Aren’t gums chock full of nervous tissues?

Re: The Case for Transmissible Alzheimer's Grows

#87

Post by mc32 »

jacquesm wrote: post #69
dpim wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From cursory googling it looks common for programs to expect you to work right up to the legal limit (80 hours/week based on 4-week averages) during residency. Having 16 hour days for ~7-8 years means that you probably have to get used to being a bit sleep deprived all the time.

What a great idea, to have sleep deprived surgeons. Really, the legal limit should be much less than that for safety reasons alone (patient safety, not surgeon safety).

Somewhere I read tired health workers are better than fresh workers who need to take over patients (losing context and details in the hand offs). Not sure if that explains it though.

Re: The Case for Transmissible Alzheimer's Grows

#88

Post by b_tterc_p »

armitron wrote: post #56
itissid wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. If certain Prion disease(like say CJD) was Communicable with a high R0[1] by say contact, fecal matter, saliva we would see a lot of people dying, since CJD has a mortality rate of 90% within 1 year[2]. 2. The level of A-beta protein(i.e. not technically prion just yet) again the deposits in 7 of the 8 patients was so severe that if this were communicable easily with a high R0, it would also be seen in the general…

1. CJD is only one specific instance of Prion disease. Others (e.g. vCJD) have incubation periods of - multiple decades -. From the article: "In the original Alzheimer’s transmissibility study, scientists examined the brains of eight patients treated with prion-contaminated human growth hormone as children who decades later died from prion disease" Alzheimers is growing at epidemic proportions, globally [1]. Alzheime…

I do wish those numbers controlled for population size, and rates of known correlated variables (e.g. diabetes).

What I want to know is whether the probability of developing the disease given I am a X year old healthy male/female has increased.

Re: The Case for Transmissible Alzheimer's Grows

#89

Post by subroutine »

colanderman wrote: post #11

Dumb question (Wikipedia was of no help), if amyloid beta looks and acts like a prion, why isn't it classified as a prion?

There is a huge misconception about what is meant by the word "prion". Get this... there is only one (1) prion protein! All mammalian prion diseases are directly related to the PRNP gene. People talk about Mad Cow, Kuru, Creutzfeldt-Jacobs, Chronic Wasting Disease, Scrapie, and a dozen other diseases like they are not all manifestations of the same underlying problem with PRNP gene variants. People talk about "prions" as a general category of proteins capable of causing chain reaction misfolding... which is indeed what happens with PRNP variants, but not a whole bunch of different proteins -- just those transcribed from PRNP (the prion protein gene). We will probably discover that other proteins do this to some extent, but it'd still be weird to call it "a prion" because it's not a proten encoded by the prion gene. Does that make sense?
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