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What causes Alzheimer's? Scientists are rethinking the answer

quantamagazine.org

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Re: What causes Alzheimer's? Scientists are rethinking the answer

#61

Post by DoreenMichele »

manmal wrote: post #58
DoreenMichele wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my mind, they are both a form of sleep deprivation. I would say that sleeping poorly, no matter how long you lay there, still constitutes sleep deprivation . And as people get older, they tend to both sleep less and also sleep less deeply.

Maybe it’s worse than that. If eg a long term lack of REM sleep lead to Alzheimer‘s (it seems to create dementia patterns at least), and people with disturbed sleep get virtually none of that, then they might be worse off than someone with just 5h of sleep.

Having had some very serious sleep issues in the past due to health issues, I would not disagree that sleep quality matters more than how many hours you sleep per se.

Re: What causes Alzheimer's? Scientists are rethinking the answer

#62

Post by 6nf »

cactusplant7374 wrote: post #37
tiffanyh wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One area I'm particularly interested in is the correlation to diabetes. Sugar. I think the correlation is more so to sugar. I too had a loved one with Alzheimer’s, and there was definitely strong reason to believe sugar was a contributing factor.

I consume a lot of sugar. I’m not diabetic or pre diabetic. I would suspect underlying inflammation leads to some nasty effects. The same for heart disease.

Why do you consume a lot of sugar?

Re: What causes Alzheimer's? Scientists are rethinking the answer

#63

Post by stevenwoo »

tiffanyh wrote: post #26
kyaghmour wrote: post #12

As someone who has a close relative diagnosed with this disease, I'm always on the lookout for new information. So this is interesting. One area I'm particularly interested in is the correlation to diabetes. It's a factor that I found being mentioned here and there in some references. In the immediate case that interests me, there's a 20+ year history of type 2 diabetes and a recent scan showed severe bilateral hypoc…

> One area I'm particularly interested in is the correlation to diabetes. Sugar. I think the correlation is more so to sugar. I too had a loved one with Alzheimer’s, and there was definitely strong reason to believe sugar was a contributing factor.

It may be the stuff we eat that raises blood sugar levels, which can be simple carbs as well. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00125-017-4541-7

Re: What causes Alzheimer's? Scientists are rethinking the answer

#64

Post by incongruity »

mongol wrote: post #40
pvaldes wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is one of the five or six big medical problems of our time.

You are probably right. How would a list look like? In no particular order, perhaps: Cancer ALS Alzheimer Diabetes Covid AIDS ?

I’d add obesity, and depression/anxiety to that list

Re: What causes Alzheimer's? Scientists are rethinking the answer

#65

Post by the__alchemist »

mongol wrote: post #40
pvaldes wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is one of the five or six big medical problems of our time.

You are probably right. How would a list look like? In no particular order, perhaps: Cancer ALS Alzheimer Diabetes Covid AIDS ?

Senescence is the primary one, by a large margin.

Re: What causes Alzheimer's? Scientists are rethinking the answer

#66

Post by joe_the_user »

g42gregory wrote: post #2

In many scientific research projects the same dangerous theme keeps surfacing: monolithic thinking, with “no alternatives allowed”. I feel this is very detrimental to both scientific progress as well as to the broader society.

I think unjustified "monolithic thinking" in this instance was bad. I'd say that's because in medicine, so many maladies are multifactorial and thus one shouldn't declare victory till your model shows strong effectiveness in the field.

But "monolithic thinking" is also accepting established theory. Unlimited diversity can open the door to all sorts of crap - I don't want "diversity" in whether a doctor accepts the germ theory of (some) disease, the existence of viruses, etc.

Re: What causes Alzheimer's? Scientists are rethinking the answer

#67

Post by perardi »

torben-friis wrote: post #29

Has anyone noticed that Alzheimer’s research tend to hit the front page much more than other medical news? I’ve been wondering why for a while.

Probably because, barring completely antibiotic resistant bacteria or some super-virus, if you live in a high-income area, you are either looking at dying due to your heart giving out, or your brain.

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-...

“Deaths due to Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias have increased, overtaking stroke to become the second leading cause in high-income countries, and being responsible for the deaths of 814 000 people in 2019.”

And given the nominally cerebral bent of this forum: kinda makes sense we’re freaking out about our brains throwing a kernel panic someday.

Re: What causes Alzheimer's? Scientists are rethinking the answer

#68

Post by personalityson »

"Scientists researching possible candidates for treating Alzheimer's disease found exercise outperformed all tested drugs for the ability to reverse dysregulated gene expression." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-22179-z

"High fitness in middle age reduces the chance of dementia by ninety percent" https://www.ergo-log.com/high-fitness-in-middle-age-reduces-...

Re: What causes Alzheimer's? Scientists are rethinking the answer

#69

Post by steve_adams_86 »

personalityson wrote: post #68

"Scientists researching possible candidates for treating Alzheimer's disease found exercise outperformed all tested drugs for the ability to reverse dysregulated gene expression." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-22179-z "High fitness in middle age reduces the chance of dementia by ninety percent" https://www.ergo-log.com/high-fitness-in-middle-age-reduces-...

Not to be pedantic, but the number appears to be (up to) 88%, and the study involved women only.

Incredible results but I think the specifics are worth using when they’re available.

Also, there is no cause and effect here, though vascular origin dementia as noted seems almost certainly to be reduced by better cardiovascular fitness, as are many other vascular issues. Having said that, vascular and arterial lining damage due to diet appears not to be resolved by exercise, and could very easily be a culprit here as well. Fitness is a great tool for general well-being, but it doesn’t appear to be the singular cause of increased wellness here.

Re: What causes Alzheimer's? Scientists are rethinking the answer

#70

Post by macrolime »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #25
macrolime wrote: post #19

There's a couple clinical trials with various variations of young blood or blood plasma being given to Alzheimer's patients. Should be interesting to see how that goes.

Did Peter Theil fund this research?

Not sure who's funding what

Most recent one I saw is this one that I think is funded by the Norwegian government

https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/12/9/e056964

Then there's startups like Alkahest https://www.alkahest.com/pipeline/akst-grf6019/

Clinical trials of sorts has been going on since at least 2017 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2017.22930

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