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Chemical clears Alzheimer's protein and restores memory in mice

nature.com

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Re: Chemical clears Alzheimer's protein and restores memory in mice

#131

Post by SuperComputing »

LordKano wrote: post #40
carbocation wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing to me that people are willing to experiment with an unapproved chemical that provides no proven benefit in humans, yet aren't willing to use human-proven therapies with known benefits such as statins.

If I was slowly losing my mind, I'd even try experimental drugs that came with a 20% chance of sudden death. There's not much worse than having your mind die while your body is still alive.

There is one _very safe_ and _very easy_ thing to do that has been shown to be correlated with a reduced risk for Alzheimers, as well as a host of other diseases: Maintain a BMI of 24.9 or below:

http://www.voanews.com/content/obesity-associated-with-earli...

2/3rds of Americans don't do this! It's mind-boggling.

Re: Chemical clears Alzheimer's protein and restores memory in mice

#132

Post by celticninja »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #126
celticninja wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an unfair generalisation in both cases. The wiki list of scientific fraud examples is very heavy on US examples.

What's the ratio of U.S. scientists to Korean scientists? 10:1 or so? I would expect to see 10x as many fraud cases in the U.S. But there have been some doozies in Korean science, especially the stem cell guy who really embarrassed and shamed his country with the extent of deception he practiced. Brilliant, but also crazy.

where is that ratio pulled from? your ass?

My point is that it was a generalization against korean scientists and a few instances is not representative of an entire group. Your point seems to be that the korean instances are somehow higher profile, but if that was the case then UK research science would be the worst because the vaccine/autism scandal has probably had the most far reaching after effects and infamy.

Re: Chemical clears Alzheimer's protein and restores memory in mice

#133

Post by throwaway6969 »

wyager wrote: post #89
electic wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? You are going to make a blanket statement about the entire Korean research community's work? [1][2][3][4][5][....] [1] http://www.dailyprogress.com/lifestyles/health/former-vcu-ca... [2] http://www.indiawest.com/news/global_indian/probe-reveals-fo... [3] http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/12/03/national/science... [4] http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/toronto-researchers-alleged-to-... [5] http://news.xinhuanet…

This is one of the realities of scientific publishing. Certain countries (like China and Korea) churn or large quantities of falsified research.

I wish I could vote this down. What does this statement really add except reiterate what was said previously?

Re: Chemical clears Alzheimer's protein and restores memory in mice

#134

Post by 4ad »

celticninja wrote: post #132
blisterpeanuts wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the ratio of U.S. scientists to Korean scientists? 10:1 or so? I would expect to see 10x as many fraud cases in the U.S. But there have been some doozies in Korean science, especially the stem cell guy who really embarrassed and shamed his country with the extent of deception he practiced. Brilliant, but also crazy.

where is that ratio pulled from? your ass? My point is that it was a generalization against korean scientists and a few instances is not representative of an entire group. Your point seems to be that the korean instances are somehow higher profile, but if that was the case then UK research science would be the worst because the vaccine/autism scandal has probably had the most far reaching after effects and infamy.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+usa+%2F+p...

Re: Chemical clears Alzheimer's protein and restores memory in mice

#135

Post by 4ad »

gus_massa wrote: post #84
LordKano wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was slowly losing my mind, I'd even try experimental drugs that came with a 20% chance of sudden death. There's not much worse than having your mind die while your body is still alive.

But perhaps it has other nasty side effects, maybe another 20% to get instant dementia. Just to pick another unrelated chemical example that is well known, 30ml of methanol will kill you but 10ml will make you permanently blind.

> 30ml of methanol will kill you but 10ml will make you permanently blind.

How is this relevant?

Re: Chemical clears Alzheimer's protein and restores memory in mice

#136

Post by gozur88 »

carbocation wrote: post #19
wrong_internet wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure Alzheimer's isn't good for you, either. I'd take any health risks over dementia, personally, and I'm sure most would, too. Looking forward to the FDA blocking this on "safety" grounds.

It's amazing to me that people are willing to experiment with an unapproved chemical that provides no proven benefit in humans, yet aren't willing to use human-proven therapies with known benefits such as statins.

Dementia is death a little bit at a time. At that point you really don't have much to lose by trying an experimental drug.

Re: Chemical clears Alzheimer's protein and restores memory in mice

#137

Post by gozur88 »

Someone1234 wrote: post #41
andy_ppp wrote: post #2

Wow, you can buy some EPPS (the chemical in the article) here for £39.20? http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/sigma/54465?lang... Looks interesting research but I'm sure this stuff probably can't be that good for you!

If you use this on someone else with Alzheimer's and they die or are injured, you will almost definitely go to jail. You could likely use it on yourself, but look at it as an extreme, it is still less bad than suicide I suppose... But you don't know what the side effects could be. It kind of scares me that people think they can buy untested chemicals online and self-medicate with them. But then again I'm not into the…

>It kind of scares me that people think they can buy untested chemicals online and self-medicate with them.

It kind of scares me other people would presume to dictate what I can and can not put into my own body.

Re: Chemical clears Alzheimer's protein and restores memory in mice

#138

Post by ank_the_elder »

efm wrote: post #94
carbocation wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing to me that people are willing to experiment with an unapproved chemical that provides no proven benefit in humans, yet aren't willing to use human-proven therapies with known benefits such as statins.

The Cochrane report on statins confirms your claim: http://www.cochrane.org/CD004816/VASC_statins-for-the-primar...

There's a lot of subtlety when it comes to statins:

"Statins are beneficial, but some have questioned whether their benefits are due to their ability to lower cholesterol or to their anti-inflammatory effects, or both. There are two competing hypotheses, the LDL hypothesis and the statin hypothesis. A new study in The New England Journal of Medicine sheds some light on that controversy and tips the balance in favor of the LDL hypothesis."

https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/update-on-cholesterol-a...

Re: Chemical clears Alzheimer's protein and restores memory in mice

#139

Post by Zigurd »

tptacek wrote: post #124
Zigurd wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody, of course. But would you prefer not to have drugs of dubious effectiveness marketed like consumer products? It's not an either or choice.

I would definitely prefer not to have chemical compounds that haven't been demonstrated effective marketed as consumer medical products. I'm not sure how that connects to the thread, though.

> demonstrated effective

While there are some drugs that are clearly effective, there are big problems in Big Pharma's approach to clinical trials, including burying half the trials' results and poor experiment design. And once a drug makes it to market, expanding that market without testing becomes a priority. Do you think Risperdal was a one-off, or is it a representative case study of how drugs are marketed by at least a major part of Big Pharma?

Re: Chemical clears Alzheimer's protein and restores memory in mice

#140

Post by geoelectric »

eveningcoffee wrote: post #7

The title is "EPPS rescues hippocampus-dependent cognitive deficits in APP/PS1 mice by disaggregation of amyloid-β oligomers and plaques" and it does not say that it reduces memory, it says "EPPS reduces Aβ-aggregate-induced memory deficits in mice" but they also say that "We observed substantial rescue of working memory deficits in Aβ-infused mice by EPPS treatment" . Of course this is only small part of the paper a…

Yeah, good highlight. My skim seems to indicate it means working memory too. That's a different concept than the kind of memory lapses most people associate with Alzheimer's--more about holding information in your head long enough to process in a subsequent step or file in long-term storage.

It's one of the major deficits in ADHD, to the extent that clarifies what the effects might be.

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