Earlier quoted context omitted.
Welcome to market driven science.
This is driven by grant writing. That’s the literal opposite of market driven
It’s the market of grant-funding agencies.
What causes Alzheimer's? Scientists are rethinking the answer
211–220 of 243 posts
Re: What causes Alzheimer's? Scientists are rethinking the answer
#212Earlier 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.
Modern medical tech and practices are keeping us alive healthier and longer. Being disheartened by the fact you still need to eat right, sleep, etc. is like being disheartened that you still need to do regular maintenance on your car and treat it well. The simple fact is that if you sabotage your body, you'll have more issues cropping up sooner and with greater severity, and if you keep it strong all that medical adv…
Or taking the car example in another direction, it's like being disheartened that you can't put diesel in your car that takes regular unleaded gasoline
We need the proper fuel, substrates, and cofactors to operate well and not do unnecessary damage
Re: What causes Alzheimer's? Scientists are rethinking the answer
#213In 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.
> the same dangerous theme keeps surfacing: dangerous theme keeps surfacing: monolithic thinking, with “no alternatives allowed”
That might be part of it. I think a bigger part is, "we don't know what X is so we can't measure it, but Y seems to coincide with X and we can measure Y, so let's focus on Y".
This probably happens a lot and sometimes it works out, but it also often doesn't. It failed with dietary cholesterol, and Alzheimer's is the just the latest big failure of this approach.
Re: What causes Alzheimer's? Scientists are rethinking the answer
#214Earlier 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. Medical technology and AI is not even close to any major improvement in life expectancy, except in much rare cases (heart transplants is one example: they're insignificant in raising overall life expectancy, as they're statistically too rare to matter). The big majority of the improvemen…
Having been vaccinated for Tdap recently very reliably predicts a 40% lower risk of dementia. I gather flu vaccine has similar effect size. Nobody knows why. Ask, and people speculate about inflammation. Having been treated for herpes lately -- valacyclovir, lately -- seems too to have outsize effect. I get all three. People doing autopsies say brains they examine are very often laced with herpes virus and bacteria,…
Td too or just Tdap?
Re: What causes Alzheimer's? Scientists are rethinking the answer
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Rerouting is mitigating. If the end result is lack of dementia, that's what's important. The fact that some percentage of the neurons are damaged is not a problem. The elasticity of the brain is an evolved trait, rerouting is what the brain does to keep working.
Well no. Is it not obvious that if you could prevent the damage that would be better than patching it over?
Re: What causes Alzheimer's? Scientists are rethinking the answer
#216Re: What causes Alzheimer's? Scientists are rethinking the answer
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's ridiculous about it?
He's never actually given ANY evidence to prove what he's suggesting. He's only shown clinical cases which are basically "these people followed my advice and got better" - Which isn't exactly scientific. It's akin to me saying that if you eat one cheeseburger every day for your whole life, you'll not get dementia. Then when you don't get dementia in the next 10 years, say that it shows what I'm saying must have had s…
I don't agree with this comparison. He does say why it would be difficult to prove his assertions on Alzheimer's, but he also brings up cases where people reversed their mental deterioration, which is unheard of. So while the case count is small, if he's telling the truth here, that's a fairly significant result. Even if it is just 1 person.
Re: What causes Alzheimer's? Scientists are rethinking the answer
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having been vaccinated for Tdap recently very reliably predicts a 40% lower risk of dementia. I gather flu vaccine has similar effect size. Nobody knows why. Ask, and people speculate about inflammation. Having been treated for herpes lately -- valacyclovir, lately -- seems too to have outsize effect. I get all three. People doing autopsies say brains they examine are very often laced with herpes virus and bacteria,…
Td too or just Tdap?
The paper said Tdap. I don't know if people in US get Td. I would get all the vaccinations locally available.
Re: What causes Alzheimer's? Scientists are rethinking the answer
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
In theory, that's where a lot of individual NIH grants are supposed to do - K level and R level grants. However, NIH people tend to have gotten risk adverse so they look to certain parameter to "vet" whoever gets the money amongst all sorts of applications. The idea is one thing, but also - whose lab you're being mentored in, prior funding success, etc etc play an equal if not more important role. I think the problem…
Nobody gets a K award on their own merits. Unless your mentoring committee is well funded and walking lockstep with conventional wisdom, your application is dead in the water.
That's the sad part. Albeit one of my colleagues I know (immensely talented in his own right) is also extremely good is sniffing out who's on the NIH study section reviewing his grants, and networking with them after hours...
Re: What causes Alzheimer's? Scientists are rethinking the answer
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
Simple, not easy.
Waaay easier than external AI and technology interventions, which don't even fully exist yet and without side effects. I mean, think of it as bodybuilding: there are plenty of good ol' ways of building strength and stimulating hypertrophy on purely natural processes, and that shouldn't be disheartening as compared to, say, injecting yourself with steroids.
>Waaay easier than external AI and technology intervention
RIP everyone that didn't win the normal body lottery though