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Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure

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Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure

#31

Post by boringuser2 »

echelon wrote: post #29
boringuser2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be true, but I don't think this makes the conclusion any more compelling because it now fails Occam's razor. Chances are greater the conclusion is simply incorrect.

> it now fails Occam's razor. I mean, mechanistically speaking, so does cancer. I don't think that's quite the lens to apply to biological systems. Biology is wildly complex and subverts expectations all the time.

It is the lens to apply to any system.

You don't defend a tenuous conclusion by doubling down with a tenuous defense.

"Science" is constantly inaccurate. I can pull two papers right now with opposing conclusions.

Assuming a scientific conclusion is simply incorrect is a pretty good bet, even if you have absolutely no context or idea what is happening at all.

Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure

#32

Post by arcticfox »

m3kw9 wrote: post #7
rajup wrote: post #4

My understanding was the beta-amyloid hypothesis itself is under some amount of scrutiny and may not truly explain Alzheimer's. Wonder if this finding adds more evidence for the amyloid hypothesis.

Not sure why scientists has to pin point a single cause where as you have different vectors that can cause the same disease is also plausible

They don't, but my surface understanding is that the medicines that effectively nuke beta amyloid have no effect overall. Which would mean it's not even one of many causes, it seems to not be a cause at all.

Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure

#33

Post by cbsmith »

boringuser2 wrote: post #28
echelon wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multiple pathways could lead to the disease. It's entirely possible that a metabolic dysfunction or viral origin causes immune dysfunction and the downstream dysregulation, misfolding, amyloid/tau signals, etc. There might be multiple entry points to causing this disease.

That might be true, but I don't think this makes the conclusion any more compelling because it now fails Occam's razor. Chances are greater the conclusion is simply incorrect.

That's a misapplication of the razor here. The simplest explanation for the statistically unusual prevalence of the disease amongst these patients is indeed that there is a causal link.

Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure

#34

Post by echelon »

boringuser2 wrote: post #31
echelon wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it now fails Occam's razor. I mean, mechanistically speaking, so does cancer. I don't think that's quite the lens to apply to biological systems. Biology is wildly complex and subverts expectations all the time.

It is the lens to apply to any system. You don't defend a tenuous conclusion by doubling down with a tenuous defense. "Science" is constantly inaccurate. I can pull two papers right now with opposing conclusions. Assuming a scientific conclusion is simply incorrect is a pretty good bet, even if you have absolutely no context or idea what is happening at all.

> It is the lens to apply to any system.

I can point to countless instances where it fails to adequately guide investigation in biology.

Occam's razor leads to premature simplification. When the space is vast, dynamical, and unknown, it's absolutely not a tool.

Do you think, for instance, that V(D)J recombination satisfied Occam's razor when we asked ourselves how adaptive immunity worked, or how some forms of diseases such as SCID manifested?

There is a metric ton of pure serendipity in the study of biology. We're drawing new connections between systems all the time. This is just a new data point.

Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure

#35

Post by eigenvalue »

I wonder what other stuff is being unwittingly transferred during standard blood transfusions. I've seen some interesting research about the "signalling" power of blood from both older and younger donors, with the "young blood" causing a slow down of senescence in cells, and the "old blood" causing a speed-up in senescence. Any time you take biological material out of other human beings and put them in a different body, it seems like you are introducing a lot more uncertainty and risk than when you inject a person with a comparatively "simple" small-molecule drug.

Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure

#36

Post by hmottestad »

pedalpete wrote: post #13
m3kw9 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why scientists has to pin point a single cause where as you have different vectors that can cause the same disease is also plausible

Or that we've been lumping multiple different types of cognitive decline as a single disease.

Can’t you make a definitive diagnosis from an autopsy. Could be that multiple diseases lead to the same findings in the autopsy.

While someone is alive a diagnosis of Alzheimers is more of a diagnosis of elimination. There are several drugs that can be used to slow the progression and I assume that those have a role to play in solidifying the diagnosis.

Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure

#37

Post by boringuser2 »

echelon wrote: post #34
boringuser2 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the lens to apply to any system. You don't defend a tenuous conclusion by doubling down with a tenuous defense. "Science" is constantly inaccurate. I can pull two papers right now with opposing conclusions. Assuming a scientific conclusion is simply incorrect is a pretty good bet, even if you have absolutely no context or idea what is happening at all.

> It is the lens to apply to any system. I can point to countless instances where it fails to adequately guide investigation in biology. Occam's razor leads to premature simplification. When the space is vast, dynamical, and unknown, it's absolutely not a tool. Do you think, for instance, that V(D)J recombination satisfied Occam's razor when we asked ourselves how adaptive immunity worked, or how some forms of diseas…

I think you're misunderstanding slightly the utility function of the logical device here.

It's not so much that we cannot analyze a complex system using this criterion, it's moreso a tool that allows us to identify a logically tenable pathway for investigating a specific element of reality.

For example, a poster above noted that I was misapplying the razor because he went one level below where I was analyzing. He's not necessarily incorrect, and neither am I.

You interrogate reality at multiple levels of magnification, which is why you don't need to know how genes specifically work to know that they work and make predictions based on their prevalence, for example.

Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure

#38

Post by axus »

eigenvalue wrote: post #35

I wonder what other stuff is being unwittingly transferred during standard blood transfusions. I've seen some interesting research about the "signalling" power of blood from both older and younger donors, with the "young blood" causing a slow down of senescence in cells, and the "old blood" causing a speed-up in senescence. Any time you take biological material out of other human beings and put them in a different bo…

My mom developed an allergy to eggs after a blood transfusion. She long regretted never being able to eat another chocolate eclair.

Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure

#40

Post by lostlogin »

eigenvalue wrote: post #35

I wonder what other stuff is being unwittingly transferred during standard blood transfusions. I've seen some interesting research about the "signalling" power of blood from both older and younger donors, with the "young blood" causing a slow down of senescence in cells, and the "old blood" causing a speed-up in senescence. Any time you take biological material out of other human beings and put them in a different bo…

> I've seen some interesting research about the "signalling" power of blood from both older and younger donors, with the "young blood" causing a slow down of senescence in cells

Maybe the Silicon Valley ‘blood boy’ can be brought to market.

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