Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What causes Alzheimer's? Scientists are rethinking the answer

quantamagazine.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 243 posts

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

#171

Post by credit_guy »

coldtea wrote: post #111
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 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…

That's just not true.

Fancy drugs save lives. Big time. My Mom had cancer and was treated with Rituximab. She's doing just fine 10 years later. That type of cancer would have been a death sentence 30 years before. There are lots of other anti-cancer drugs like Rituximab, and they save lives every day.

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

#172

Post by wwweston »

90d wrote: post #161
coldtea wrote: post #111

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. 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…

Make AI. Choose next path : (1) herculean effort to make it confirm to what they have established as politically correct. (2) improve AI.

Everyone wants "politically correct" AI.

Wanna keep it from turning murderbot or paperclip maximizer? Welcome to the arena of politics of correct values. Wanna use it for longevity research? Same.

Some people also would like to make sure it isn't helping stoke antisemitism or genocide, but apparently that's controversial for some reason, so guess it's political.

(And that's before we get to the usual issue that people using "politically correct" as the drive-by aspersion that's so unfortunately common are usually more ideological than those they criticize and very much have their own political correctness they're anxious to impose by any means available to them...)

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

#173

Post by whythre »

im3w1l wrote: post #142
burnerburnito wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The thing with eating and sleeping right etc is that we know the limits of it: it can keep you alive into your 90's at best, and more realistically into your 80's. Technology on the other hand is completely uncapped. A pill that keeps a degenerate bum alive into the 80's might be really hard to achieve, but the kicker is that once you do, it's just another step or two to keeping him alive until 200.

Sounds like an extreme oversimplification to me. There are lots of things that get slowly out of whack in a system as complex as the body.

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

#174

Post by alexfromapex »

mikenew wrote: post #130

There's a lot of articles recently on how we're "rethinking" Alzheimer's, and what is utterly baffling to me is the way none of them seem to mention that it has recently come to light that much of the foundational research on Alzheimer's was falsified: https://www.science.org/content/article/potential-fabricatio...

And they mention the “resistance” in the scientific community to consider causes other than amyloids which is introducing human biases into the scientific process

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

#175

Post by m463 »

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-...

also saunas.

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

#176

Post by bruce511 »

im3w1l wrote: post #142
burnerburnito wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The thing with eating and sleeping right etc is that we know the limits of it: it can keep you alive into your 90's at best, and more realistically into your 80's. Technology on the other hand is completely uncapped. A pill that keeps a degenerate bum alive into the 80's might be really hard to achieve, but the kicker is that once you do, it's just another step or two to keeping him alive until 200.

Not to state the obvious, but old people are really, well, old (and frail).

Your pill would need to do a lot of heavy lifting. I'm no doctor, but your pill would need to deal with mental issues (dementia of all kinds etc) and physical issues, like muscle mass, bone density, flexibility, skin elasticity and lots more.

There are very few, dare I say no, 90 year old that could pass for 70 - what sort of condition would 120 bring? Or 130 etc?

As an expert in one field, used to customers waving their hands telling me "this won't take long for you to do, it's very simple", I feel like your belief in (medical) technology, and what is possible, may be just a touch optimistic.

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

#177

Post by xedrac »

stubish wrote: post #170
can16358p wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand it makes so much sense. We're the result of hundreds of millions of evolution on this planet, and we're very optimized for the actions that we can take in nature (e.g. Walk, swim, hunt an animal/grap a fruit, eat, reproduce). No wonder why these are good for us, because these are our true traits. Modern medicine, on the other hand, is a few hundred years old at best and generally work as a band-aid…

Exercise always seems counterintuitive. After all, things tend to wear out and break when you use them. You don't use the good scissors for most things or they won't be good when you need them. We would be a lot less grumpy if the way to build muscle was to take it easy, and you only needed to exercise if you were overbulking and needed to wear some out. So we want a pill that triggers the regenerative effects of exe…

I really enjoyed the book "Move your DNA". It talks a lot about the loads you place on your body (even ones you don't think about) and the effects that has. Definitely worth a read.

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

#178

Post by SamPatt »

irrational wrote: post #149
im3w1l wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing with eating and sleeping right etc is that we know the limits of it: it can keep you alive into your 90's at best, and more realistically into your 80's. Technology on the other hand is completely uncapped. A pill that keeps a degenerate bum alive into the 80's might be really hard to achieve, but the kicker is that once you do, it's just another step or two to keeping him alive until 200.

Isn’t genetics more important? There are families where everyone dies young - look at the guy who popularized jogging. All the men in his family die young. He tried to beat it be exercising, eating healthy, etc. Still died young. Same age as his father. Others families live into their hundreds without any effort. It would seem the first thing to do is to figure out a way to fix DNA.

Quoting from his (Jim Fixx) wiki article:

In 1986 exercise physiologist Kenneth Cooper published an inventory of the risk factors that might have contributed to Fixx's death.[6] Granted access to his medical records and autopsy, and after interviewing his friends and family, Cooper concluded that Fixx was genetically predisposed—his father died of a heart attack at 43 after a previous one at 35,[7] and Fixx himself had a congenitally enlarged heart—and had an unhealthy life: Fixx was a heavy smoker before beginning running at age 36, had a stressful occupation, had undergone a second divorce, and gained weight up to 214 pounds (97 kg).[8] Medical opinion continues to uphold the link between moderate exercise and longevity.[9]

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

#179

Post by JKCalhoun »

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.

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

You should be happy that it's so simple.

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

#180

Post by steve_adams_86 »

siftrics wrote: post #118
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be pedantic, but the number appears to be (up to) 88%, and the study involved women only. Incredible results but I think the specifics are worth using when they’re available. Also, there is no cause and effect here, though vascular origin dementia as noted seems almost certainly to be reduced by better cardiovascular fitness, as are many other vascular issues. Having said that, vascular and arterial lining dam…

That is a ludicrous take. If exercise reduced risk of dementia by 99% would you still feel compelled to point out that it "doesn't appear to be the singular cause of increased wellness"? Where's your threshold? We literally have the solution. What you're saying, while it is technically true, seems to be more of an excuse or justification not to exercise. Perhaps I'm reading too much into your comment.

I think you are reading into it too much, but I think you also might be missing that fit people may tend to make a LOT of different decisions in life than less fit people.

This is something I’ve been digging deep into and discovering a lot of seemingly safe assumptions turn out not to be.

I do expect exercise is a major factor here (perhaps the largest), but I’m acutely aware lately that these things, especially where nutrition could be a significant factor, are rarely ever cut and dry. It’s incredibly complex.

I don’t mean to say people shouldn’t exercise. I should have emphasized that, without a doubt. We know beyond any shadow of doubt that it improves quality of life dramatically for virtually everyone.

Post reply on HN