Different Brain Regions Are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer’s Disease • Hacker News Board

Re: Different Brain Regions Are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer’s Disease

#41

Post by shostack » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 12:23 AM UTC

chetanahuja wrote: post #37

Uptrenda wrote: post #23

It's hard not to exaggerate the implications of this study if fungal infection does turn out to be the cause of AD given how huge this would be for humanity. Just off the top of my head I can say this disease has effected my family (1 set of grandparents effected by this disease so far) so I'd like for the conclusion to be correct. I guess the next step would be testing the hypothesis with more people with AD to see…

The discovery, if corroborated by others, could indeed be huge but I'm afraid it wouldn't open up new treatment options anytime soon. Fungal infections inside the body are really really hard to treat in the first place. Add to that the blood-brain barrier which makes it very hard to treat any type of infection in the brain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood%E2%80%93brain_barrier#Fu... Combination of these two facto…

Would the recent discovery of lymphatic tubes going into our brains[1] be a potential area of focus for potential treatment?

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9647253

Re: Different Brain Regions Are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer’s Disease

#42

Post by carey » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 12:24 AM UTC

bitL wrote: post #32

Is there any relation to the study that suggested AD is diabetes type 3? Insulin resistance + fungi?

Candida is a common opportunistic infection in diabetes type 2, so there's a few ways in which correlations could be observed. The fungal infection could be a symptom of the underlying "type 3" diabetetes; or the CNS fungal infections could be more common in diabetic or pre-diabetic people, leading to AD.

Re: Different Brain Regions Are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer’s Disease

#43

Post by nickff » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 12:31 AM UTC

low_battery wrote: post #13

stupidcar wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took thirty years for the medical establishment to accept the hypothesis that the bacteria H. pylori was the cause of peptic ulcer disease, rather than excess stomach acid.

Yeah, but that was in 1982.

Are you implying that doctors have become more accepting of theories which challenge the status quo? Do you have any reason to believe things have gotten better?

Doctors still seem to prescribe blood pressure medication and low-salt diets to people with hypertension, depite the overwhelming number of studies which show that neither prescription has any impact on mortality rates. It doesn't look like they are particularly evidence-driven or self-aware as a profession.

Re: Different Brain Regions Are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer’s Disease

#44

Post by Dylan16807 » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 12:31 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #30

3327 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps but the discovery is still significant. Until now there was no such correlation with Alzeimher's and Fungi. This has significant implications in terms of direction of future research.

> Until now there was no such correlation with Alzeimher's and Fungi. The point of the criticism seems to be that with an improper control group, there still isn't such a correlation, just a suggestion of a possibility of a correlation. But it might be a correlation between, e.g., age and fungal infection. That's why, but for the variables under study, you want your control group to look as much like your experimenta…

That's not how correlations work.

Re: Different Brain Regions Are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer’s Disease

#45

Post by kevinalexbrown » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 12:34 AM UTC

chetanahuja wrote: post #37

Uptrenda wrote: post #23

It's hard not to exaggerate the implications of this study if fungal infection does turn out to be the cause of AD given how huge this would be for humanity. Just off the top of my head I can say this disease has effected my family (1 set of grandparents effected by this disease so far) so I'd like for the conclusion to be correct. I guess the next step would be testing the hypothesis with more people with AD to see…

The discovery, if corroborated by others, could indeed be huge but I'm afraid it wouldn't open up new treatment options anytime soon. Fungal infections inside the body are really really hard to treat in the first place. Add to that the blood-brain barrier which makes it very hard to treat any type of infection in the brain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood%E2%80%93brain_barrier#Fu... Combination of these two facto…

First, there are antifungal drugs that pass the BBB, with varying efficacy:

https://www.medicine.wisc.edu/sites/default/files/domfiles/i...

Second, antifungals have positively affected AD-like symptoms, though possibly through misdiagnosis.

Re: Different Brain Regions Are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer’s Disease

#46

Post by thawkins » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 12:34 AM UTC

rmtew wrote: post #24

dacompton wrote: post #15

There was recent speculation that alzheimer's was transmissible (prion thing). The transmissibility would make sense if it were actually the fungi causing the build up of the proteins and other damage.

From what I recall, the results in a study showed that the primary care giver of an alzheimer's patient was more likely to get alzheimer's themselves. The argument against transmissibility was that primary care givers tend to be related to the patient.. therefore the more likely reason for caregiver alzheimer's is genetics.

Or as primary care giver they are exposed to the same environmental factors the sufferer is exposed to, but are generaly younger so more resistant until later life.

Re: Different Brain Regions Are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer’s Disease

#47

Post by jakejake » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 12:35 AM UTC

low_battery wrote: post #13

stupidcar wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took thirty years for the medical establishment to accept the hypothesis that the bacteria H. pylori was the cause of peptic ulcer disease, rather than excess stomach acid.

Yeah, but that was in 1982.

That seems to be the case as far back as medical history goes. New discoveries are sometimes dismissed or even laughed at by the establishment. Perhaps the skepticism is for good reason because there's so much quackery out there. But it seems that new medical ideas take a huge amount of effort to gain acceptance - even today.

Re: Different Brain Regions Are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer’s Disease

#48

Post by falsedan » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 12:48 AM UTC

nickff wrote: post #43

low_battery wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but that was in 1982.

Are you implying that doctors have become more accepting of theories which challenge the status quo? Do you have any reason to believe things have gotten better? Doctors still seem to prescribe blood pressure medication and low-salt diets to people with hypertension, depite the overwhelming number of studies which show that neither prescription has any impact on mortality rates. It doesn't look like they are particul…

Doctors are selected and trained to memorize insane amounts of facts, and how to match symptoms to facts. Updating those facts is hard since they're stored when the brain is young and still great at learning (there are refresher courses doctors are required to attend to keep their accreditation, but they lean heavily towards learning new facts, not changing existing ones).

Re: Different Brain Regions Are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer’s Disease

#49

Post by et2o » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 12:53 AM UTC

nickff wrote: post #43

low_battery wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but that was in 1982.

Are you implying that doctors have become more accepting of theories which challenge the status quo? Do you have any reason to believe things have gotten better? Doctors still seem to prescribe blood pressure medication and low-salt diets to people with hypertension, depite the overwhelming number of studies which show that neither prescription has any impact on mortality rates. It doesn't look like they are particul…

You are mistaken. There is very compelling evidence that controlling hypertension reduces mortality.

Re: Different Brain Regions Are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer’s Disease

#50

Post by nickff » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 12:55 AM UTC

falsedan wrote: post #48

nickff wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying that doctors have become more accepting of theories which challenge the status quo? Do you have any reason to believe things have gotten better? Doctors still seem to prescribe blood pressure medication and low-salt diets to people with hypertension, depite the overwhelming number of studies which show that neither prescription has any impact on mortality rates. It doesn't look like they are particul…

Doctors are selected and trained to memorize insane amounts of facts, and how to match symptoms to facts. Updating those facts is hard since they're stored when the brain is young and still great at learning (there are refresher courses doctors are required to attend to keep their accreditation, but they lean heavily towards learning new facts, not changing existing ones).

You are probably right, but it is not clear which category this finding of a fungus-Alzheimer's correlation would be in. Most theories could retroactively be put in to either category (new facts or changed facts), so I am not sure whether this framework gets you anywhere.

In any case, the relative difficulty of updating previous beliefs does not excuse the failures of doctors which cause a great deal of death and suffering. When engineers fail to update their beliefs, and people die, it is called negligence.