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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

#71

Post by andrewflnr »

> Faced with the choice of either chasing cures based on amyloid or pursuing a nebulous something-more-than-amyloid, the medical and pharmaceutical communities made what seemed like the rational choice.

No one should accept this as an excuse. They weren't rational, they chased the shiny.

I'm not sure "visibility bias" already has the right meaning, but if not we need a term for this pervasive problem where people just choose to not believe or otherwise ignore factors that don't leap out to them, even if they're just as if not more important in reality. More abstractly we see it with Alzheimer's hypotheses here: Hypotheses with greater uncertainty suffer the same treatment, where not having as clear an idea about what it is causes it to be entirely discounted, for years, in favor of the clearer action plan.

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

#72

Post by ericmcer »

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-...

I hate this because I want to believe technology and AI and will result in modern medicine where everyone has long healthy lives.

The reality that just eating right, sleeping and exercising is still our best health advice is humorous and disheartening.

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

#73

Post by Ekaros »

perardi wrote: post #67
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 be…

I think the third one is cancer. And I think there is quite a bit of press releases on new possible methods and drugs on it.

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

#74

Post by irrational »

ericmcer wrote: post #72
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-...

I hate this because I want to believe technology and AI and will result in modern medicine where everyone has long healthy lives. The reality that just eating right, sleeping and exercising is still our best health advice is humorous and disheartening.

I don’t understand why it is disheartening?

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

#75

Post by dmarlow »

ericmcer wrote: post #72
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-...

I hate this because I want to believe technology and AI and will result in modern medicine where everyone has long healthy lives. The reality that just eating right, sleeping and exercising is still our best health advice is humorous and disheartening.

That's not a realistic view though. Technology and AI aren't some magical things that remove the need to have a balanced life. At the end of the day, we are living/breathing animals that depend on the things around us to grow and thrive.

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

#76

Post by adamredwoods »

ericmcer wrote: post #72
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-...

I hate this because I want to believe technology and AI and will result in modern medicine where everyone has long healthy lives. The reality that just eating right, sleeping and exercising is still our best health advice is humorous and disheartening.

I wish gyms were less expensive, and had places, even a table perhaps, that kids and tweens could use. It would make exercise more accessible for me and my lifestyle.

In university, I had an indoor track I could use, it was fantastic and had plenty of room for families and people exercising.

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

#77

Post by steve_adams_86 »

adamredwoods wrote: post #76
ericmcer wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate this because I want to believe technology and AI and will result in modern medicine where everyone has long healthy lives. The reality that just eating right, sleeping and exercising is still our best health advice is humorous and disheartening.

I wish gyms were less expensive, and had places, even a table perhaps, that kids and tweens could use. It would make exercise more accessible for me and my lifestyle. In university, I had an indoor track I could use, it was fantastic and had plenty of room for families and people exercising.

This should be in every city. The only way I could reliably exercise when my kids were babies was by running them in a stroller.

Apart from the mental health aspect (lack of agency, no time or space to yourself), you can’t always subject your kids to the weather of the day or they’re uncooperative to the point that the run isn’t feasible. Not to mention the multitude of reasons people can’t run, from disabilities to simply having no safe place to run with a stroller. Smooth sidewalks with space are kind of a luxury.

With a lifestyle and/or restrictions like that, no wonder people get out of shape. We can’t rely on our communities having space and accommodation for kids and so, well, without a family network we’re on our own.

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

#78

Post by throwawaymaths »

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-...

> High fitness in middle age reduces the chance of dementia by ninety percent

Not to be a sourpuss but I believe that a reasonable theory on this is that physical activity, especially activity that uses brain power, causes neuronal development which reroutes function around damage, without necessarily preventing or mitigating damage itself.

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

#79

Post by torben-friis »

natchathum wrote: post #35
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.

From the comment right below yours: > As someone who has a close relative diagnosed with this disease, I'm always on the lookout for new information. So this is interesting. AD is, sadly, rather common, as well as a really devastating disease: you can do nothing but watch as your loved ones become shells of themselves in front of your eyes. You can consider yourself lucky for not having gone through it personally.

>You can consider yourself lucky for not having gone through it personally.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve lost relatives to it. It just seems overrepresented vs, say, cancers. But it might just be my impression.

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

#80

Post by thevulcanlogic »

lucidrains wrote: post #17
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…

in some medical circles, alzheimers is referred to as "type 3 diabetes"

so why don't Alzheimer's patient take diabetes medication and problem solved?
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