191–200 of 243 posts
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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.
What is scary is that society is structured to ensure that many people can't get enough sleep, exercise and healthy meals.
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.
The thing is, the beta amyloid theory was the only explanation for Alzheimer's that would allow treatments to be developed right now.
Tons of people want treatments asap.
While it makes no sense to develop treatments based on this theory if they definitely won't work, when it looks like there's an 80% chance of the theory being wrong, 100% of drug companies' Alzheimer's drug development money is still going to go to drugs based on this theory because we have nothing else except vague hypotheses with no drug targets.
So actually part of the problem is that so many people are incentivized to keep sticking to this theory and someone needs to step in and stop it.
The brain "takes out the trash" when you sleep.* From what I have read, the accumulation of both amyloid beta and tau are linked to sleep deprivation. They may be markers of sleep deprivation and treating the sleep deprivation may be the best thing to do, though that probably won't get someone famous for some billion dollar drug discovery, so no one will likely pursue it. (Yes, I am aware that some of the research is…
Disturbed sleep should IMO also be looked at - eg UARS and sleep apnea. You can sleep 8h every night and still feel crappy waking up. Maybe disturbed sleep is even worse than lack of sleep? I can feel better after 6h of good sleep than after 9h of disrupted sleep (eg when I know I‘ve been snoring, eg due to throat infection).
The technology we're developing at https://soundmind.co is supporting an Alzheimer's prevention trial beginning in January '23 which is looking at the impact of slow-wave enhancement in the clearing of Amyloid plaques.
could be prions from eating meat, could be genetic... it's likely similar to "what causes cancer?"
AFAIK Alzheimer’s is a single disease, whereas cancer is kind of a catch-all category for a huuuuge set of different disorders caused and treated by different things.
I think we'll find there are many types of Alzheimer's, some Amyloid based, others viral, or dietary, etc.
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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…
There are already large mammals - bowhead whales - that can live 200 years. Perhaps we can adopt some of their longevity traits without having to become giant ocean creatures.
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> 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.
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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…
Tissues that aren't stressed naturally atrophy to conserve energy, which saves on food, which is adaptive in evolutionary terms. This has the natural implication that those tissues will reach an equilibrium where they are barely stronger than your most basic needs.
If the only stress you experience is getting off the couch to get some food, just doing that will be a little difficult. Larger, sudden stresses will cause injuries because your tissues won't be adapted to handle them.
Exercise ensures that we mentally and physically exceed our normal stress thresholds, so the remaining stresses of life is less stressful by comparison.
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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.
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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.
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…
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,…
Roughly, the sentiment was that I am young and have time to wait for more research, that taking drugs long term will itself likely have consequences. I'm not inclined to disagree there, although the evidence seems quite strong.
I look forward to seeing more funding and scientific effort directed toward other avenues.