6 ms·
Japanese university finds Alzheimer's drug effective in treating ALS in mice
- Kuinox 5y agoin mice.
- hunterb123 5y agoIs this trope necessary every time? It's clearly in mice in the article. Just consider it an update if you're skeptical, now they'll be moving on to the next set of mice w/ sporadic or non-inherited ALS....
- ekianjo 5y agoIt took them 6 paragraphs to mention mice. Thats astonishing how much they oversell this kind of stuff.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- shawnz 5y agoIs it really such a big deal for them to build hype around a potentially promising medical advancement? What's the downside of this kind of reporting? Even if the drug fails, maybe it will spur more research into similar candidates
- toast0 5y agoThis type of reporting contributes to announcement fatigue. What use is all this hype now for something that is probably 5 years out from the market, if it even works (which past results suggest is unlikely).
- shawnz 5y agoHas that actually been demonstrated? I don't personally feel fatigued by medical advancements which ended up not panning out. In fact they make me feel hopeful about the future and glad to exist in a society where such research is even possible.
- ekianjo 5y agoMaybe you are still young? When you have seen 30 years of such revolutionary tech in pharma every other week with 0.001 % actual outcomes on the market, yes, you get tired of it.
- shawnz 5y agoI am approximately 30 if that's what you meant. I think a 0.001% success rate is pretty good for revolutionary technologies and I'm glad to have those successes. I think it is wrong to downplay the importance of the failed attempts just to increase that success rate. More absolute successes is strictly better than a higher success rate.
- ekianjo 5y agogetting clicks for overhyping stuff that in 99.99% of the case does not even make it to human trials. Shoving ads in your face at the same time.
- shawnz 5y agoAdmittedly I'm using an adblocker and didn't notice the latter problem, which sounds annoying. But I don't see why the former is a problem on its own.
- msie 5y agoThey could have tried the drug on humans but they wouldn’t have had the results they got with mice.
- TheChaplain 5y agoThey probably have plenty of candidates, but if the outcome would make the situation worse for the patient... Well, they'd be in for a world of bad PR and possibly legal issues. Imagine the headlines.. "Company X ruined the last living days of patient"
- dorkwood 5y agoHow do they find mice with ALS?
- ekianjo 5y agoMice models which have pretty much nothing to do with actual ALS.
- chaps 5y agoCan you clarify? Like, I would assume that if it's still named "ALS" that there are some commonalities. If those differences are big enough (to the extent that the models are nothing alike) why is the naming shared? Happy to accept "bad journalism"!
- johnisgood 5y agoI dunno, but when they do research on MS (multiple sclerosis), they do it on mice with experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE), which is an animal model of MS.
- ProjectArcturis 5y agoYou're getting downvoted, but this is exactly right. We create a mutant mouse that has symptoms that are somewhat similar to the disease we're studying. Then we find a drug that cures the "disease" in the mouse. Then we try it in humans and it fails and we make the shocked Pikachu face.
- sva_ 5y agoSimilar deal with Alzheimer's.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- moffkalast 5y agoIf a medical researcher can't give a mouse cancer and cure it he ain't any good. Somewhat better ones can do the same for ALS it seems.
- cblconfederate 5y agoIf people are so bothered by mouse research, why don't we have a line of research aiming to make humans look more like mice?
- omgitsabird 5y agoThis low-effort comment is popping up more and more. I would say just assume the title has "in mouse disease model" at the end of it. Then we can get away from the large dismissive negativity spiral that all of these threads turn into.
- busyant 5y agoLow effort, but high information density.
- junon 5y agoNot really low effort if it points out a huge problem in the world of scientific journalism...
- scoopertrooper 5y agoThe article stated exactly the limitations of the experiment. It was conducted with mice and only mice with a less common form of ALS. I'd say the problem is less with journalism in this instance, and more-so with peoples limited attention spans.
- maximus-decimus 5y agoIt's a problem with the title.
- scoopertrooper 5y agoMy point regarding attention span stands. The title could certain do with improvement, but people should not be consuming their news of the basis of titles.
- maximus-decimus 5y agoI do because most articles are crap. The comments are simply better quality. For example, I was able to tell in 2 seconds that this was on mice from reading the comments and so that I don't care about the article.
- Aaargh20318 5y agoEvery time I read about some drug that appeared to work in animal models but not in actual humans I wonder how often the opposite is true. We are necessarily limiting ourselves to drugs that work in humans + at least one other species.
- jeroenhd 5y agoVery promising! I hope the human trials will be effective, we'll have to see in a few years how it all plays out. Until then, it's great news for mice all around.
- savant_penguin 5y ago
- elektor 5y agoIf anyone is interested in a promising drug tested in humans and not mice, AMX0035 is under FDA review and had positive Phase II results. https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/comment/potential-fda-approval-amylyxs-amx0035-als/ https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/comment/potential-fda-ap...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- nefitty 5y agoValdenafil (Levitra) has shown some effect on ALS [1]. Coincidentally, the related sildenafil (Viagra) was identified through computer-aided research as a drug of interest in Alzheimer's prevention. [2] 1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969996117302449 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096999611... 2. https://www.everydayhealth.com/alzheimers-disease/viagra-may-significantly-cut-alzheimers-risk-study-finds/ https://www.everydayhealth.com/alzheimers-disease/viagra-may...
- therein 5y agoIt has very interesting effects. You'll find that it helps with ingrown hairs. They'll begin to get out on their own, within hours of taking it orally and in general become very eager to come out with simple hand motions. Someone should look into it. Consistent effect. I looked into it years ago and indeed PDE5 inhibition has something to do with ingrown hairs.
- skrtskrt 5y agoIt seems like a commonality if all these drugs that have multiple positive effects is that they all increase blood flow in some way? Am I wrong?
- arrosenberg 5y agoYes, Viagra in particular works by causing vasodilation.
- ToddWBurgess 5y agoI asked a neurologist I know about ALS drugs and he doesn't have a lot of faith in any of them. On a personal note, my mother had ALS. I can tell you it is a terrible disease and a terrible way to go. I really do hope they find something for it.
- joshocar 5y agoI'm sorry that your mother had to go through that. My partner is a neurologist and she hates having to give an ALS diagnosis. It fills her with dread when symptoms align with a possible ALS diagnosis. If she doesn't have a conclusion diagnosis she will sometimes not even suggest that something might be ALS because of the suicide risk. Personally, I think we will have a treatment for it in my lifetime.
- hourislate 5y ago>It fills her with dread when symptoms align with a possible ALS diagnosis. If she doesn't have a conclusion diagnosis she will sometimes not even suggest that something might be ALS because of the suicide risk. This is a huge problem. Someone close to our family spent a lot of money to get a diagnosis because none of the doctors wanted to "go there". They ended up having to visit the MAYO Clinic for 2 weeks and spent a small fortune to find out, it hurt the family financially.
- xyzzy21 5y agoMy middle school chemistry teacher offed himself in his backyard with a shotgun when he started noticing symptoms of Huntington's (which his mother died of). I'd taken chemistry with him the previous year and he was easily the best chemistry teacher ever. It's an issue but without a cure or even viable ameliorative treatment, suicide is 100% a a legit personal choice.
- adamredwoods 5y agoSuicide is not personal, as with any pre-mature death. It greatly affects the surviving family.
- akimball 5y ago…But they aren’t saying what the drug is
- JPLeRouzic 5y agoThis publication, which has Takeo Kato as author, might be useful (it's about a curcumin derivative): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34894926/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34894926/
- mrVentures 5y agoYou would think they'd work on human alzheimers before worrying about the mice. /s
- virgiewa 5y ago