Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10179161
Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)
21–30 of 145 posts
Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)
#22Research is making really big step, we all hope for a cure of this and other plague that are ruining our lives. I often ask myself if the nature of the disease itself make it even worse: AIDS was the worst in its age, people went in streets asking for a cure, now we made huge steps, the same it's happening with cancer, but Alz make everything different: the sick can't make his voice heard, he has no knowledge of what…
Very little is spent on Alzheimer’s research compared to other diseases:
https://www.aarp.org/health/brain-health/info-2015/alzheimer...
I suppose if we made more of an effort now, we’d make considerable progress in 10-20 years.
Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)
#23There's a lot of scientific evidence that medical marijuana can remove beta-amyloid build up in the brain. There is also evidence that unknown spirochete diseases can cause Alheimer like symptoms. There is also cause for concern that bio-pesticides that are GMO based are can infect the brain and cause symptoms like this as well. I would definitely never give up if this happened to me. Antibiotics, antiparasite, diet changes, small microdosages of CBD/THC based marijuana strains, neuroprotective compounds, etc --- all through a process of elimination with a journal. I hope Jo or somebody like Jo reads my comment and tries these things.
Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Alzheimer is sometimes referred to as diabetes type 3. Just because it is referred to that way doesn't mean that it is actually the case. The hypothesis that AD=Diabetes has been around for at least ten years [1]. If it were true, I would have expected to see some results by now about how diabetes interventions can slow the advance of AD, if not prevent and/or reverse it entirely. AFAICT there have been no such res…
We're only now just waking up to the reality that type-2 diabetes can be reversed w/ carbohydrate restriction, even though the data to support that has been around for decades. I don't think a decade is an unusual latency for the medical institution to lay idle on.
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Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)
#25The Pentagons really drove home what it is like to have this. It must be so hard...
Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)
#26Research is making really big step, we all hope for a cure of this and other plague that are ruining our lives. I often ask myself if the nature of the disease itself make it even worse: AIDS was the worst in its age, people went in streets asking for a cure, now we made huge steps, the same it's happening with cancer, but Alz make everything different: the sick can't make his voice heard, he has no knowledge of what…
Very little is spent on Alzheimer’s research compared to other diseases: https://www.aarp.org/health/brain-health/info-2015/alzheimer... I suppose if we made more of an effort now, we’d make considerable progress in 10-20 years.
Absolutely; I don't know what type of effort we could do though. I think that sharing stats like these [0] can help. "Scaring" people with numbers can be a path.
Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)
#27Reading this will rightfully scare the bejeezus out of us. The question is, what can we do? Alzheimer is sometimes referred to as diabetes type 3. Cutting out sugar and eating a low carb diet is a good precaution. It likely wouldn't have helped Jo, but it might save quite a few of us from this scary outcome.
Ugh, I did my PhD work in a lab that did both Alzheimer's and diabetes research, and the "type 3 diabetes" label drove me up the wall. Especially considering type I and type II have totally different etiologies anyway (athough there were totally crazy attempts to unnecessarily strongly connect those, by PIs looking to justify grant money)
Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)
#28Goddammit. I am going to cry.
This was a wonderful piece. Empathy in every detail, while still being open enough to satisfy a reader's curiosity. It read like a book and I accidentally began to feel a kinship with the characters.
Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)
#29This topic is touched upon briefly in the excellent game / walking simulator "Firewatch".
Thank you, the trailer looks fantastic.
Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)
#30This sounds insane to say, if you haven't lived with a parent or family member with dementia, but if that happens to me I really hope I have the nerve to kill myself.
Not insane at all. I’m with you on this. I grew up with my grandma, who lived with my family. She was a cool, collected, highly stable person who worked her whole life as a doctor. I guess this sounds really heavy thinking about it now, but it didn’t seem so at the time when she told me once when I was a teenager that if she ever had dimentia that I should kill her somehow. She was of course to some extent trying to…
I have told my partner that if I get dementia, I would like to die. I didn't say he should kill me, but I hope that he wouldn't have to.