Chemical clears Alzheimer's protein and restores memory in mice • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by Someone1234 » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 3:26 PM UTC

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 whole "Bath Salts" scene which is all about that.

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

#42

Post by odabaxok » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 3:27 PM UTC

toabi wrote: post #3

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!

Shows 137.50€ here :D

4,265.99 CZK ~ 157.82 EUR (Czech Republic)

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

#43

Post by vox_mollis » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 3:27 PM UTC

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.

provides no proven benefit in humans

I know there's very good reason to be wary of mouse models, but in cases (as this appears to be) where the physiological mechanism of disease is both (a) understood and (b) the same from mouse to human, a little less skepticism may be warranted.

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

#44

Post by heimatau » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 3:27 PM UTC

Ginkgo Biloba [1] is very solid at helping preventing Alzheimer's, even in some cases slowing it down when it's already occurring. Lots of research on the benefits of Ginkgo. Yet most don't know about it.

[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ginkgo+biloba+alzheimer+site%3A.ed...

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

#45

Post by refurb » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 3:28 PM UTC

plg wrote: post #6

it's a great day for mouse health

You have a good point. Keep in mind that this is a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease. That is, these mice have a genetic defect that causes similar changes to that seen in human Alzheimer's disease. These mice do not have the same disease as in humans.

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

#46

Post by blisterpeanuts » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 3:31 PM UTC

This is heartening news; if not a cure, at least it suggests a promising avenue for future research into this terrible condition.

This LiveScience[1] article is an easily read summary that also mentions a critique of the approach.

Given the unfortunate history[2][3] of falsified Korean scientific research, it would be prudent to withhold judgment until these results have been reproduced in other labs around the world.

1. http://www.livescience.com/53019-epps-chemical-washes-away-a...

2. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/world/asia/27clone.html?_r...

3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/0...

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

#47

Post by bro-stick » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 3:31 PM UTC

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.

Hippies often did the same thing. It's pretty dumb to just throw compounds in your body without having a guestimate about their effects.

In the future, medical clinicians won't have to guess as much because adult stem cells can now be created from red blood cells, allowing personalized medication with a petri model of actual patient tissue, to screen problems like interactions and allergies before administration.

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

#48

Post by lg » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 3:33 PM UTC

heimatau wrote: post #44

Ginkgo Biloba [1] is very solid at helping preventing Alzheimer's, even in some cases slowing it down when it's already occurring. Lots of research on the benefits of Ginkgo. Yet most don't know about it. [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ginkgo+biloba+alzheimer+site%3A.ed...

https://nccih.nih.gov/research/results/gems

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

#49

Post by bro-stick » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 3:34 PM UTC

vox_mollis wrote: post #43

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.

provides no proven benefit in humans I know there's very good reason to be wary of mouse models, but in cases (as this appears to be) where the physiological mechanism of disease is both (a) understood and (b) the same from mouse to human, a little less skepticism may be warranted.

Mouse models are rapidly becoming obsolete as it's becoming easier than ever to model entire, differentiated tissues grown from red blood cell-derived adult stem cells.

It's also now possible to do clinically-useful testing of targeted treatments using genetically-edited control tissue cultures against unedited tissue cultures.

The point is that it's better to test something that is as close to the patient as possible, not guess with other species or even other people whom express genes differently.

FYI: making a new mouse models requires lots of chopping off heads of mice whom don't possess the desired gene. While transgenic, highly-edited living models might be nice, there's probably a more humane/simpler/reproducible way to do the exact same thing.

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

#50

Post by jonnathanson » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 3:34 PM UTC

jupp0r wrote: post #37

nashashmi wrote: post #15

I am having an epiphany. Maybe this "Alzheimer protein" is supposed to be the brain's defenses to something much worse. Maybe this protein is a "reaction" similar to skin rashes when it absorbs poison ivy's urisol. If Alzheimer was simply a deficiency of nutrients, I wouldn't think this way, but if it really is a protein that "can be cleared", why did it get there in the first place?

I'm not an expert, but human lifespans have only risen to relevant heights very recently. It's simply not enough time for it for evolution to kick in.

Average life expectancy is a commonly misunderstood (and widely misrepresented) concept. We hear things like "Humans really only lived into their 40s in the Stone Age," or what have you. This is untrue.

Average (arithmetic mean) life expectancy was a lot lower because it was heavily skewed by infant mortality. Up until very recently, many more babies died within their first few years of life. We've dramatically improved our ability to produce and distribute food and medicine, which has had a profound effect on infant survivability. But we haven't actually lengthened the average life expectancy of an adult who survives the first few years of childhood by all that much.

Point is, plenty of people have been living into their 70s, 80s, and 90s for as long as we've existed as a species. That said, the prevalance of diseases like Alzheimer's might be a fairly modern aberration, perhaps owing to lifestyle, environmental, and dietary factors.