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

#81

Post by pcwalton » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 2:25 AM UTC

thanatosmin wrote: post #75

As a biomedical researcher, I'm confident in calling this sloppy science. There is no quantitation of staining differences across multiple fields (to demonstrate that the images aren't hand picked), no controls with the PCR study (or even showing the results besides one in the supplement), and no demonstration that the antibodies don't bind to amyloid. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and this wou…

I'm curious: how does something this obviously flawed get through peer review for Nature?

(I believe you that this is bad science.)

Edit: I answered my own question here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Reports (Summary: It's not Nature; it's a "megajournal" affiliated with it with apparently much lower editorial standards.)

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

#82

Post by nonbel » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 2:26 AM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #72

pygy_ wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you got downvoted. It would have to be done in double blind trials vs placebo, but it would be a great way to test the causal link between fungi and symptoms. You'd have to make sure the fungicides cross the blood brain barrier in patients.

Haven't we studied the effects of Alzheimers enough not to need the control group? I worked in clinical trials and one study still haunts me knowing what happened to the control group.

Sure, it fits right in with the plan to get rid of those pesky controls when testing painkillers too: "Drug companies have a problem: they are finding it ever harder to get painkillers through clinical trials. But this isn't necessarily because the drugs are getting worse. An extensive analysis of trial data1 has found that responses to sham treatments have become stronger over time, making it harder to prove a drug’s advantage over placebo. [...] For companies trying to develop treatments, one remedy might be to compare new drugs against their best competitors instead of against placebo — or to go back to conducting smaller, shorter trials." http://www.nature.com/news/strong-placebo-response-thwarts-p...

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

#83

Post by nonbel » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 2:33 AM UTC

Nature is not a good scientific journal. The good info will be found in highly specialized journals. The amount of BS in scientific journals is related to prestige like this:

x=seq(0,1,by=.01);

plot(x,dbeta(x,.5,.5), xlab="Prestige", ylab="BS")

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

#84

Post by solofounder7 » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 2:49 AM UTC

et2o wrote: post #63

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's known to be pretty difficult to treat a lot of fungal infections in the CNS. The agents we have are pretty nasty, with severe side effects.

I'm a hacker not a doctor but I've done some research into water purification, and here is what I've learned:

The body is mostly water. The task of removing microorganisms and fungus from water has been well studied.

Science knows of effective agents which are proven to purify water of micro-organisms like bacteria and also fungus. Some of these are being utilized in public water decontamination, and others while also effective are not used because they are less cost efficient to produce.

Water purifying agents have a varying range of effectiveness and also and a varying range of toxicity to the human body. There are a couple of agents in particular however which are both well tolerated by the body and are also remarkably effective at decontaminating water.

The one which my research indicates leads the pack in this area is a white crystalline salt named Potassium Iodide, KI. KI has been used widely by both the military and by campers in portable water decontamination.

A solution of Potassium Iodide in water (known colloquially as Iodine) was a leading and apparently very effective drug during the 19th century in the United States. There are doctors today who prescribe milligram doses of KI (many many times more than the RDA) to treat a wide array of ailments but especially in dermatology. They do not typically see serious side effects although they do frequently recommend monitoring thyroid levels while utilizing higher doses.

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

#85

Post by protomyth » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 2:54 AM UTC

nonbel wrote: post #82

protomyth wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't we studied the effects of Alzheimers enough not to need the control group? I worked in clinical trials and one study still haunts me knowing what happened to the control group.

Sure, it fits right in with the plan to get rid of those pesky controls when testing painkillers too: "Drug companies have a problem: they are finding it ever harder to get painkillers through clinical trials. But this isn't necessarily because the drugs are getting worse. An extensive analysis of trial data1 has found that responses to sham treatments have become stronger over time, making it harder to prove a drug’…

My sarcasm detector is busted, are you for or against control group in this situation?

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

#86

Post by angelbob » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 3:03 AM UTC

et2o wrote: post #51

falsedan wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Most doctors are constantly learning new information. It's not just refresher courses, you have to pass frequent and comprehensive examinations to stay board-certified. I have no idea why HN has this bias against physicians.

Personal experience with physicians has been my primary way to gain this bias against physicians.

You could also do research on, say, Lister or checklists and get the bias that way.

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

#87

Post by pmoriarty » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 3:16 AM UTC

Are these fungi from Yuggoth?

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

#88

Post by hamami » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 3:18 AM UTC

solofounder7 wrote: post #84

et2o wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's known to be pretty difficult to treat a lot of fungal infections in the CNS. The agents we have are pretty nasty, with severe side effects.

I'm a hacker not a doctor but I've done some research into water purification, and here is what I've learned: The body is mostly water. The task of removing microorganisms and fungus from water has been well studied. Science knows of effective agents which are proven to purify water of micro-organisms like bacteria and also fungus. Some of these are being utilized in public water decontamination, and others while als…

you cannot just decontaminate your body, the human body relies on beneficial microorganisms to function. without them you'd die

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

#89

Post by fernly » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 3:57 AM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #66

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…

>clamouring of families trying to get their hands on anti-fungal drugs in the future in the hope that it helps their loved ones but we simply won't know if this will help until there's more data. It may not be so hard to get data - try anti-fungals and see if the patients get better. There are plenty of patients and the drugs could be tried in countries other than the US. It could be possible to get data in a few wee…

> try anti-fungals and see if the patients get better

I got the impression that the disease symptoms result not from the mere presence of the fungus, but from progressive damage over a long time. So, if you don't start to treat until there are symptoms, you could kill the fungus and at best, the person would not get worse. Which is not to be dismissed, but...

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

#90

Post by solofounder7 » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 4:04 AM UTC

hamami wrote: post #88

solofounder7 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a hacker not a doctor but I've done some research into water purification, and here is what I've learned: The body is mostly water. The task of removing microorganisms and fungus from water has been well studied. Science knows of effective agents which are proven to purify water of micro-organisms like bacteria and also fungus. Some of these are being utilized in public water decontamination, and others while als…

you cannot just decontaminate your body, the human body relies on beneficial microorganisms to function. without them you'd die

Remarkably KI is gentle on the body while still doing a great job purifying water of the most common foul bacteria and fungus.

This seems like it would make no sense until you stop to consider that idea that in earlier generations of man we ate on average a lot more marine plants than we do today (kelp in particular) which are rich in Potassium Iodide. People ate kelp because it was a "low hanging fruit" so to speak, easily harvested in great quantity from the sea. Perhaps the beneficial organisms in our gut evolved to tolerate KI so that populations could tolerate eating mostly seaweed.

The Japanese still eat a lot of kelp (the average japanese male ingests more than 40mg of KI daily from seaweed), and if you crunch the statistics it looks like they may have significantly less AD among their population than we do in the west: http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/alzheimers...