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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

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you get 2x bw squats at home? What are you squatting? Your fridge and oven?

> How can you get 2x bw squats at home? You can't. I assume your parent was confused about notation. You can get 1x body weight squats (that is to say your actual body + 1x your body weight as additional load) by doing one legged squats off of a chair.

Your interpretation is correct.

I don't understand where I'm wrong about the 2x bw though?

My thesis is that disregarding upper body gains, which can be compensated by other exercises, single leg squats will get you to 1x + 1x bw, which is 2x, with almost no gear at all.

You can also reasonably easily add about 2x15kg in dumbbells which is almost another 0,7x or so, making home training quite powerful.

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

#202
TLDR:

After decades of research focused on the amyloid cascade hypothesis, which claims that sticky plaques of amyloid-beta proteins between neurons are the main cause of Alzheimer's disease, many scientists are now turning their attention to deeper dysfunctions happening within cells. Some believe that the disease is caused by a variety of proteins that may be causing multiple cell dysfunctions, while others are focusing on the role of tau protein tangles, which also form inside neurons.

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

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can you get 2x bw squats at home? You can't. I assume your parent was confused about notation. You can get 1x body weight squats (that is to say your actual body + 1x your body weight as additional load) by doing one legged squats off of a chair.

Your interpretation is correct. I don't understand where I'm wrong about the 2x bw though? My thesis is that disregarding upper body gains, which can be compensated by other exercises, single leg squats will get you to 1x + 1x bw, which is 2x, with almost no gear at all. You can also reasonably easily add about 2x15kg in dumbbells which is almost another 0,7x or so, making home training quite powerful.

Single leg squats are a fantastic tool. You can work so much in different ways depending how you balance. Very little special equipment needed!

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

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’m sorry for suggesting you haven’t, my condolences.

Besides the emotional side, AD is more of a single entity than all of cancer, as well as really costly in terms of hospice etc so financially the research is much more viable. The mystery of the mind as well as the state of the art are also a lot easier to get clicks with than “new crazy expensive drug marginally increases the prognosis of one specific type of cancer”, so the latter’s smaller breakthroughs don’t get as much publicity.

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

#205
I liken the fight against alzheimers to the fight against aging. Isn’t it kinda the same battle? As things and people age they just break down, same thing happens to a car, as it gets older the metal rusts, the moving parts seize up and eventually the car itself suffers a catastrophic failure that ultimately results in its death. Same thing happens to people as well, the brain is like an computer in a way, except it does have actual things moving inside of it, the moving parts (Cells) get older and start to break down, ultimately leading to the death of the person.

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

#206
Idea: I'd love a ChatGPT plugin that turns long articles like this into bullet points.

Not because I'm lazy and can't read long articles anymore (omg the attention span of young people!). Having worked in this field, I'd love to skim and find out whether there's any new information here I'm not aware of without going to filler paragraphs starting with "in a sunny afternoon in August".

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

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you get 2x bw squats at home? What are you squatting? Your fridge and oven?

It's a bit expensive to get started, but a rack and weights will pay for itself in saved gym fees after a couple years, or a few months for 2 people somewhere expensive like SF. We managed to fit one back when my wife and I lived in 1 bedroom apartments.

> a rack and weights will pay for itself in saved gym fees after a couple years

That's been my solution.

If you take into account resale value, it'll actually pay itself off much faster - especially if you're willing to wait for good deals.

I think I was able to put together a full set of weights + another set of 45s for less than $1/lb. I'm using a cheap bar and a cheap rack, so the whole thing cost me less than $800.

I estimate that I could sell it all today for $600 for sure, and probably get back all my money if I was willing to wait 1-2 months.

The other big advantage of using a home gym is wait times; I used to go to a commercial gym, where the wait time for a rack was often more than 30 minutes at peak times. As long as you don't need machines (lat pulldown can be very nice), a rack at home can make gym time much more efficient.

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

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can you get 2x bw squats at home? You can't. I assume your parent was confused about notation. You can get 1x body weight squats (that is to say your actual body + 1x your body weight as additional load) by doing one legged squats off of a chair.

Your interpretation is correct. I don't understand where I'm wrong about the 2x bw though? My thesis is that disregarding upper body gains, which can be compensated by other exercises, single leg squats will get you to 1x + 1x bw, which is 2x, with almost no gear at all. You can also reasonably easily add about 2x15kg in dumbbells which is almost another 0,7x or so, making home training quite powerful.

> I don't understand where I'm wrong about the 2x bw though? ... single leg squats will get you to 1x + 1x bw, which is 2x

The disagreement is purely about notation.

In the strength world, people routinely ignore bodyweight when measuring squat intensity - they only list load weight. I suspect that this is, in large part, an effort to be consistent with other barbell exercises like Deadlift (which I mentioned earlier), Press, Bench Press, Row, etc. where including one's body weight wouldn't really make sense.

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

#209

"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.

“Most people dig their graves with their teeth” has been an adage for over 100 years now.

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

#210
post #4

I'm fine with most researchers pursuing a particular direction, but I get concerned when incentives align that provide a significant pressure for them to research what they wouldn't naturally want to research. It seems like there should be a distribution of research directions, not everyone in lockstep. It's hard to gauge from the outside to what degree that is happening in our research institutions today.

I’d blame the grant-givers for incentivizing the lockstep behavior rather than the scientists for playing the game.
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