6 ms·

There are so many links to Alzheimer's lately that I'm not sure there's a reasonable prevention strategy.

by asciimo 8y ago

kabulykos 8y ago
Most nascent lines of research probably shouldn't be used to make life choices anyway.
- hawkice 8y ago
  It's possible this comment should be the top comment on all pop science news reports. Edit: ideally people could down vote stories. Maybe only at some super high karma?
  - ISL 8y ago
    Frodo: 'It's a pity Bilbo didn't kill Gollum when he had the chance.' Gandalf: 'Pity? It's a pity that stayed Bilbo's hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play in it, for good or evil, before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.' TL;DR: One can effectively downvote stories via the "flag". Use it with great care.
    - hawkice 8y ago
      I didn't flag the story because it isn't offensive or blatantly inappropriate. I'm not sure you need to warn people off that. But I'm also pretty sure that if this stuff was banished to buzzfeed Hacker News would be much better and buzzfeed would not suffer in finding the audience. I cannot imagine a serious issue with it simply not showing up at all for the same reasons we don't like highly political stories: Nobody is convincing anybody, and there's not anything you can do about it, it just makes you worry so you read the story. It isn't click bait, but it is something like think bait.
  - marcosdumay 8y ago
    There's no reason for hiding news about nascent lines of research. They are interesting and relevant. People should just not make life choices based on them.
walrus01 8y ago
There is pretty good research that shows people who remain engaged in mentally challenging activities past age 65 have a lower rate of Alzheimers. Whether it's playing chess, engaging in some technically complicated hobby like large-scale model trains, studying art history, whatever. I've seen studies that show a strong parallel between people who are passive media consumers and don't self-identify in surveys as doing anything that exerts themselves mentally, and the rate of alzheimers.
- iforgotpassword 8y ago
  But that sounds like one of those observations where you don't know what's the cause and what's the result. Alzheimer's starts slowly and can go for quite some time before being diagnosed. But during that time, things like playing chess could already become more difficult and less pleasing so you just don't do that and resort to watching TV.
  - walrus01 8y ago
    The studies I've seen were specifically tracking people who've been doing "mentally taxing" activities as part of a long term lifestyle choice, before the typical onset age. As compared to people who self-identified as not doing anything mentally taxing in the last N years.
baxtr 8y ago
67% of all humans carry HSV-1. I don’t think there is much prevention you could do http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/herpes-simplex-virus http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/herpes-simpl...
- jopsen 8y ago
  Well, we could work on a cure and vaccine for HSV-1. Whether or not it mitigates Alzheimer's I sure would pay a lot of money to not deal with cold sores every winter.
  - yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
    There already is an effective therapeutic vaccine. There has been for years. The problem is, it's only done a phase II clinic trial. They need USD$20mm to move through the third phase, and onto mass production. The company is called AuRx. If anyone has twenty million in their pocket, please end herpes for all. Peter Thiel's investment firm threw USD$7mm at Rational Vaccines last year, but unfortunately as far as I'm aware they are mired in a legal battle since their first human "clinical trial" was performed outside the supervision of the regulators. Rational Vaccines (Prof. William Halford) developed Theravax, a live-attenuated vaccine. It operates on the same principle as the vaccine developed by AuRx, but IIRC, not quite as safely and effectively. Aside from this, our only (as far as I'm aware) hopes are CRISPR efforts from either Editas or Excision Bio, or an antiviral developed by NanoViricides.
    - echelon 8y ago
      Have they thought about crowd funding a raise? I'd contribute. Surely they can do something outside of institutional investing.
      - yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
        Yeah, there have been many attempts at crowdfunding this stuff. As it turns out, nobody cares that much. You'd think all the celebrities who buy $100mm mansions could do something about it (since statistically they probably all have it), but no. If we're lucky, Thiel's investment will turn good. I'm sure his associates aren't morons and they didn't invest in a dud. Last I heard, Rational Vaccines are ramping up to proper human clinic trials within FDA regulations. We just need to wait. Excision Bio should be running human clinical trials either next year or the following, and our collective understanding of CRISPR is expanding rapidly. So that's something to be excited about. Not that this makes waiting any less painful for sufferers.
chiefalchemist 8y ago
Correlation is not cause. The problem is, most journalists, who filter / rewrite the study press releases don't understand the difference. Sometimes, frankly, I'm not so sure some who publish such studies understand the difference; or if they do they don't care and publish anyway for the publicity. File fake science next to fake news. It's real.
nonbel 8y ago
Everything is correlated with everything else. Take that as a first principle and you will see that almost all the "discoveries" you hear about are a waste of time.
autokad 8y ago
alzheimers is probably like cancer. its not useful to talk about 'one cure' when in reality its many diseases. in alzheimer's case, its probably a symptom of many possible things that can go wrong

There are so many links to Alzheimer's lately that I'm not sure there's a reasonable prevention strategy.

kabulykos 8y ago

Most nascent lines of research probably shouldn't be used to make life choices anyway.

hawkice 8y ago
It's possible this comment should be the top comment on all pop science news reports. Edit: ideally people could down vote stories. Maybe only at some super high karma?
- ISL 8y ago
  Frodo: 'It's a pity Bilbo didn't kill Gollum when he had the chance.' Gandalf: 'Pity? It's a pity that stayed Bilbo's hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play in it, for good or evil, before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.' TL;DR: One can effectively downvote stories via the "flag". Use it with great care.
  - hawkice 8y ago
    I didn't flag the story because it isn't offensive or blatantly inappropriate. I'm not sure you need to warn people off that. But I'm also pretty sure that if this stuff was banished to buzzfeed Hacker News would be much better and buzzfeed would not suffer in finding the audience. I cannot imagine a serious issue with it simply not showing up at all for the same reasons we don't like highly political stories: Nobody is convincing anybody, and there's not anything you can do about it, it just makes you worry so you read the story. It isn't click bait, but it is something like think bait.
- marcosdumay 8y ago
  There's no reason for hiding news about nascent lines of research. They are interesting and relevant. People should just not make life choices based on them.

walrus01 8y ago

There is pretty good research that shows people who remain engaged in mentally challenging activities past age 65 have a lower rate of Alzheimers. Whether it's playing chess, engaging in some technically complicated hobby like large-scale model trains, studying art history, whatever. I've seen studies that show a strong parallel between people who are passive media consumers and don't self-identify in surveys as doing anything that exerts themselves mentally, and the rate of alzheimers.

iforgotpassword 8y ago
But that sounds like one of those observations where you don't know what's the cause and what's the result. Alzheimer's starts slowly and can go for quite some time before being diagnosed. But during that time, things like playing chess could already become more difficult and less pleasing so you just don't do that and resort to watching TV.
- walrus01 8y ago
  The studies I've seen were specifically tracking people who've been doing "mentally taxing" activities as part of a long term lifestyle choice, before the typical onset age. As compared to people who self-identified as not doing anything mentally taxing in the last N years.

baxtr 8y ago

67% of all humans carry HSV-1. I don’t think there is much prevention you could do http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/herpes-simplex-virus http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/herpes-simpl...

jopsen 8y ago
Well, we could work on a cure and vaccine for HSV-1. Whether or not it mitigates Alzheimer's I sure would pay a lot of money to not deal with cold sores every winter.
- yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
  There already is an effective therapeutic vaccine. There has been for years. The problem is, it's only done a phase II clinic trial. They need USD$20mm to move through the third phase, and onto mass production. The company is called AuRx. If anyone has twenty million in their pocket, please end herpes for all. Peter Thiel's investment firm threw USD$7mm at Rational Vaccines last year, but unfortunately as far as I'm aware they are mired in a legal battle since their first human "clinical trial" was performed outside the supervision of the regulators. Rational Vaccines (Prof. William Halford) developed Theravax, a live-attenuated vaccine. It operates on the same principle as the vaccine developed by AuRx, but IIRC, not quite as safely and effectively. Aside from this, our only (as far as I'm aware) hopes are CRISPR efforts from either Editas or Excision Bio, or an antiviral developed by NanoViricides.
  - echelon 8y ago
    Have they thought about crowd funding a raise? I'd contribute. Surely they can do something outside of institutional investing.
    - yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
      Yeah, there have been many attempts at crowdfunding this stuff. As it turns out, nobody cares that much. You'd think all the celebrities who buy $100mm mansions could do something about it (since statistically they probably all have it), but no. If we're lucky, Thiel's investment will turn good. I'm sure his associates aren't morons and they didn't invest in a dud. Last I heard, Rational Vaccines are ramping up to proper human clinic trials within FDA regulations. We just need to wait. Excision Bio should be running human clinical trials either next year or the following, and our collective understanding of CRISPR is expanding rapidly. So that's something to be excited about. Not that this makes waiting any less painful for sufferers.

chiefalchemist 8y ago

Correlation is not cause. The problem is, most journalists, who filter / rewrite the study press releases don't understand the difference. Sometimes, frankly, I'm not so sure some who publish such studies understand the difference; or if they do they don't care and publish anyway for the publicity. File fake science next to fake news. It's real.

nonbel 8y ago

Everything is correlated with everything else. Take that as a first principle and you will see that almost all the "discoveries" you hear about are a waste of time.

autokad 8y ago

alzheimers is probably like cancer. its not useful to talk about 'one cure' when in reality its many diseases. in alzheimer's case, its probably a symptom of many possible things that can go wrong