Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015) • Hacker News Board

Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)

#81

Post by bdamm » Mon, Jul 09, 2018, 12:38 AM UTC

mattigames wrote: post #49

entropy_ wrote: post #38

My wife's family has a different disease running through it, though one with very similar outcomes. Huntington's. It's genetic and dominant (so a parent having it means 50/50 for the children). Average age of onset is 38. Symptoms are a mixture of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's (both dementia and motor control issues). Her uncle was diagnosed at 38, her mother at 50. I wasn't around for the first one, but have been ther…

Yeah the only end of it is gonna be when people with such diseases stop having children, but just pointing out such an obvious solution generates all kinds of scorn from the people you are talking to, they seem to immediately think of "eugenics" and every other bad word and imagine you running a concentration camp... and not just people voluntarily using birth control to avoid the suffering of their own offspring tha…

Immunotherapy could help here. Just declaring that those testing positive for Huntington should never have kids is a form of moral nihilism and skips over the moral conversation heading straight for the governance “solution”. There are plenty of times I’m glad for rights based constitutions and keeping “solutions” like this out of government is one of them.

Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)

#82

Post by aurbano » Mon, Jul 09, 2018, 12:54 AM UTC

ddingus wrote: post #40

I have tears. I fear this more than I realized before. I think I just need to say a few things. So they exist somewhere, because of that fear, anger and sadness brought to me by this story. I remember the day I woke up, and by that, I mean the difference between being that kid, experiencing, and who I am today. It happened for me in 2nd grade. End of year, and I realized I could no longer choose to read, it just happ…

Have you read “Buddhism, plain and simple”?

We share many ideas and have gone through a similar awakening. As most of the people commenting here, I wish we could all gather around a coffee table to discuss that book and others...

Please, if you haven’t read it, consider doing so :)

Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)

#83

Post by lostlogin » Mon, Jul 09, 2018, 1:05 AM UTC

quotemstr wrote: post #71

mattigames wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the only end of it is gonna be when people with such diseases stop having children, but just pointing out such an obvious solution generates all kinds of scorn from the people you are talking to, they seem to immediately think of "eugenics" and every other bad word and imagine you running a concentration camp... and not just people voluntarily using birth control to avoid the suffering of their own offspring tha…

One day soon, we'll probably be able to generate a hundred embryos, sequence their genomes, and just implant the ones that lack detectable genetic and chromosomal diseases. Same outcome, but without the ethical hurdles inhetent in choosing who gets to reproduce. Embryo selection will still be hugely controversial, of course, but we have to overcome any reflex to ban the technique. Human genetic engineering is a techn…

I was under the impression that this was already being done?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3306852/

Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)

#84

Post by st26 » Mon, Jul 09, 2018, 1:09 AM UTC

ejstronge wrote: post #66

mattigames wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being wired to think that way doesn't make it right under any light whatsoever; and I never say anything about enforcing anything; that's where the slippery slope starts by you and everyone else who thinks the same, where people pretend you are talking about enforcing, but you are just bringing the _option_ of not having children as a valid way to end the suffering, because even talking about such option brings all t…

Your approach might reduce the rates of these genetic illnesses, but it would not eradicate them, as most commmon genetic illnesses have a non-negligible rate of spontaneous occurrence.

Do we know if latent precursors combine, or is it really spontaneous/random?

Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)

#85

Post by lostlogin » Mon, Jul 09, 2018, 1:11 AM UTC

pmyteh wrote: post #52

mattigames wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the only end of it is gonna be when people with such diseases stop having children, but just pointing out such an obvious solution generates all kinds of scorn from the people you are talking to, they seem to immediately think of "eugenics" and every other bad word and imagine you running a concentration camp... and not just people voluntarily using birth control to avoid the suffering of their own offspring tha…

Huntington's normally first appears in a family when the carrier is late in life, so it's really not that simple. Not uncommon to already have grandkids before you know. The average age of onset reduces as the generations go on. And FWIW it has a spontaneous occurrence rate, so even if all known carriers have no offspring it wouldn't eradicate it.

> first appears when a carrier is late in life

Not disagreeing with you I don’t think, I’d call it disease appearance to happen at middle age at best. Plenty have visible symptoms in their 20s though usually it’s in their 30s and 40s. Death is usually sometime around 20 years after onset of symptoms, though earlier onset often means earlier death. This is apart from the suicide risk, which is markedly increased. It’s about as awful a disease as one can have.

Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)

#86

Post by st26 » Mon, Jul 09, 2018, 1:14 AM UTC

m_mueller wrote: post #73

quotemstr wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One day soon, we'll probably be able to generate a hundred embryos, sequence their genomes, and just implant the ones that lack detectable genetic and chromosomal diseases. Same outcome, but without the ethical hurdles inhetent in choosing who gets to reproduce. Embryo selection will still be hugely controversial, of course, but we have to overcome any reflex to ban the technique. Human genetic engineering is a techn…

Isn't that currently just a matter of legality and cost? You can already test for trisomy syndromes by sequencing a bit of the mother's blood around week 10 and isolating the embryo's chromosomes statistically - that probably takes a very fault tolerant kind of sequencing, but throw in an order of magnitude more money or a couple more years of cost reductions and you're there.

Not all sunshine & roses. Here's a dark factoid for you- my memory is a bit fuzzy on when you chose mother's blood vs amniotic fluid sample for the test, but at the time I learned about all this, the odds of taking the amniotic fluid sample causing spontaneous abortion, were higher than the odds of the fetus having the more common trisomy conditions. For any particular fetus, the test was more risky than the disease.

Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)

#87

Post by RickJWagner » Mon, Jul 09, 2018, 1:29 AM UTC

My wife's friend lost both her mother and father to alzheimer's. She is absolutely terrified about it.

It's an awful disease. We should make it a top priority to put an end to it.

Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)

#88

Post by JohnBooty » Mon, Jul 09, 2018, 1:36 AM UTC

michaelmrose wrote: post #61

mattigames wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the only end of it is gonna be when people with such diseases stop having children, but just pointing out such an obvious solution generates all kinds of scorn from the people you are talking to, they seem to immediately think of "eugenics" and every other bad word and imagine you running a concentration camp... and not just people voluntarily using birth control to avoid the suffering of their own offspring tha…

Ill do you one better mandatory genetic testing as a kid illegal to pass on the disease. Penalty is a permanent tax of up to 10% of your income for life. No more disease in one generation.

There are a lot of obvious upsides to this, but the downsides are pretty dire.

There are very few human beings (if any) that don't have something lurking in their genetic history. An elevated risk factor for this or that.

It's potentially a great way to suppress particular groups of people since there are a lot of heritable diseases that are typically only carried by certain ethnic groups i.e. African Americans and sickle cell anemia.

Also where do you draw the line? Outlaw people from procreating if there's a 100% chance of inheritance? 50%? 1%?

What about nonfatal, inheritable stuff like obesity or blindness? Or fallen arches?

Even the "easy" case (a 100% inheritable, 100% fatal disease) is maybe more complicated than we want to think. What is "fatal?" Fatal in

     Penalty is a permanent tax of up to 10% of your income for life.

Even this is problematic. What about very poor people without any money to tax, or what about very rich people who simply don't care and/or have so many tax loopholes that they pay no taxes despite living comfortably?

Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)

#89

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 09, 2018, 1:38 AM UTC

mattigames wrote: post #49

entropy_ wrote: post #38

My wife's family has a different disease running through it, though one with very similar outcomes. Huntington's. It's genetic and dominant (so a parent having it means 50/50 for the children). Average age of onset is 38. Symptoms are a mixture of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's (both dementia and motor control issues). Her uncle was diagnosed at 38, her mother at 50. I wasn't around for the first one, but have been ther…

Yeah the only end of it is gonna be when people with such diseases stop having children, but just pointing out such an obvious solution generates all kinds of scorn from the people you are talking to, they seem to immediately think of "eugenics" and every other bad word and imagine you running a concentration camp... and not just people voluntarily using birth control to avoid the suffering of their own offspring tha…

[deleted]

Re: Having Alzheimer’s at 38 (2015)

#90

Post by Arbalest » Mon, Jul 09, 2018, 1:44 AM UTC

mattigames wrote: post #49

entropy_ wrote: post #38

My wife's family has a different disease running through it, though one with very similar outcomes. Huntington's. It's genetic and dominant (so a parent having it means 50/50 for the children). Average age of onset is 38. Symptoms are a mixture of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's (both dementia and motor control issues). Her uncle was diagnosed at 38, her mother at 50. I wasn't around for the first one, but have been ther…

Yeah the only end of it is gonna be when people with such diseases stop having children, but just pointing out such an obvious solution generates all kinds of scorn from the people you are talking to, they seem to immediately think of "eugenics" and every other bad word and imagine you running a concentration camp... and not just people voluntarily using birth control to avoid the suffering of their own offspring tha…

The classical solution of preventing individuals reproducing doesn't have to the the only solution. Prevent by natural reproductive methods perhaps, but at some point, we're going to be able to genetically screen individual sperm and eggs. Though the latter will be a lot more difficult with the limited supply. The visceral opposition will be there, but the philosophical issue is partially sidestepped.

There is clearly a hierarchy of problem genes which will mean that the philosophical issue is not eliminated. Debilitating diseases is obviously something people are not opposed to eliminating. Eliminating the more subtle personality "defects" though will prove a lot more problematic where we start going into issues of homogenisation in a population.