7 ms·

Down for me. Cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6h861HpvxcQJ:neurosciencenews.com/alzheimers-memory-loss-reversal-1377/&hl=en

by sogen 12y ago

Down for me. Cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6h861HpvxcQJ:neurosciencenews.com/alzheimers-memory-loss-reversal-1377/&hl=en&gl=mx&strip=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6h861Hp... Meat of the article: The model of multiple targets and an imbalance in signaling runs contrary to the popular dogma that Alzheimer’s is a disease of toxicity, caused by the accumulation of sticky plaques in the brain. Bredesen believes the amyloid beta peptide, the source of the plaques, has a normal function in the brain – as part of a larger set of molecules that promotes signals that cause nerve connections to lapse. Thus the increase in the peptide that occurs in Alzheimer’s disease shifts the memory-making vs. memory-breaking balance in favor of memory loss. Given all this, Bredesen thought that rather than a single targeted agent, the solution might be a systems type approach, the kind that is in line with the approach taken with other chronic illnesses—a multiple-component system. ... (1) eliminating all simple carbohydrates, leading to a weight loss of 20 pounds; (2) eliminating gluten and processed food from her diet, with increased vegetables, fruits, and non-farmed fish; (3) to reduce stress, she began yoga; (4) as a second measure to reduce the stress of her job, she began to meditate for 20 minutes twice per day; (5) she took melatonin each night; (6) she increased her sleep from 4-5 hours per night to 7-8 hours per night; (7) she took methylcobalamin each day; (8) she took vitamin D3 each day; (9) fish oil each day; (10) CoQ10 each day; (11) she optimized her oral hygiene using an electric flosser and electric toothbrush; (12) following discussion with her primary care provider, she reinstated hormone replacement therapy that had been discontinued; (13) she fasted for a minimum of 12 hours between dinner and breakfast, and for a minimum of three hours between dinner and bedtime; (14) she exercised for a minimum of 30 minutes, 4-6 days per week. The results for nine of the 10 patients reported in the paper suggest that memory loss may be reversed, and improvement sustained with this therapeutic program, said Bredesen. “This is the first successful demonstration,” he noted, but he cautioned that the results are anecdotal, and therefore a more extensive, controlled clinical trial is needed.

jobu 12y ago
One more bit that seemed important: His laboratory has found evidence that Alzheimer’s disease stems from an imbalance in nerve cell signaling: in the normal brain, specific signals foster nerve connections and memory making, while balancing signals support memory loss, allowing irrelevant information to be forgotten. But in Alzheimer’s disease, the balance of these opposing signals is disturbed, nerve connections are suppressed, and memories are lost. This is a theory that I hadn't heard before, but it makes sense. I'm wondering if this signaling imbalance is something that could discovered in a test or scan, and if so, how early?
bostonpete 12y ago
I don't know how to interpret this. The fact that better diet, exercise, and sleep can improve cognitive function is well-known, right? Is there any reason to believe that this isn't just yielding short-term benefits that seem to counteract the decline rather than reversing the memory loss associated with Alzheimer's?
- Retric 12y ago
  It's a study using 10 people. So the best way to interpret it is to ignore it. However, "One potentially important outcome is that all six of the patients whose cognitive decline had a major impact on job performance were able to return to work or continue working without difficulty." which suggests a significant improvement even if it was simply temporary.
- autism_hurts 12y ago
  Here's the shocker: they're not short term.
drzaiusapelord 12y ago
>6) she increased her sleep from 4-5 hours per night to 7-8 hours per night; This alone probably accounts for everything. My god, even a healthy person at 4 hours of sleep is a mess. Doubling that is a major, major difference. The difference for me between 6 and 8 is like night and day, especially from a memory point of view. I can't imagine 4-5 for a long stretch, let alone as my regular sleeping pattern. I wonder if caffeine abuse is a factor here. I meet a lot of older folk who can drink 10+ cups of coffee a day. I really don't think they have that strong of a tolerance. I think it just props them for a while due to poor sleep and they get used to be being stimulated and cranky instead of addressing their sleep issues.
bane 12y ago
I'm curious about #11. Any ideas why that would be part of the program?
- JamesBarney 12y ago
  There is a link between dental hygiene and cognitive function. This is caused because bad dental hygiene leads to a bacterial infection in the mouth which in turn leads to large amounts of inflammation which damages the brain in addition to the cardiovascular system.
- lvevjo 12y ago
  There is some evidence of a correlation between oral hygiene and Alzheimer's: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/264164.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/264164.php Basically, people with poor oral hygiene are more likely to develop Alzheimer's than people with good teeth. You might have heard about a similar study that found a link between oral hygiene and heart disease. The theory, at least in that case, is that bad oral hygiene causes chronic long-term inflammation throughout the body, not just in your gums. This might increase risk of heart disease. Without looking at the data, I would guess that the same theory applies to Alzheimer's and maybe other diseases. The usual caveat about correlation != causation applies of course.
  - sogen 12y ago
    Wow. Thanks for that tidbit
  - eruditely 12y ago
    ?? If Alzheimer's is related to memory & executive functioning(probably is) then the people who are likely to develop Alzheimer's are likely to have poor oral hygiene. Oral hygiene is a good proxy for people who know it's important, but somehow still forget. A solid proxy for executive functioning decline, executive functioning in general, working memory, and a cluster of other things.
- paulsutter 12y ago
  As for #11, Non-flossed teeth are a material source of inflammation in the body. Inflammation has been shown to be a significant driver of several health conditions [1] including arterial clogging (ie, that cholesterol itself only starts to "stick" in the presence of inflammation). Arterial clogging is an issue in the brain as well as the heart. Poor dental hygeine is correlated with heart attacks, for example. Avoiding simple carbohydrates (#1) is primarily important to control blood sugar (elevated blood sugar has many detrimental effects, both short term and long term [2]). But fructose and alcohol, also simple carbs, are metabolized by the liver and the metabolic by-products are shown to cause inflammation as well [3] [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21047463 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21047463 [2] http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/diabetes/expert-blog/high-blood-sugar/bgp-20056519 http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/diabetes/exper... [3] http://ajpendo.physiology.org/content/299/5/E685 http://ajpendo.physiology.org/content/299/5/E685
pizza 12y ago
(6) she increased her sleep from 4-5 hours per night to 7-8 hours per night That's a huge lifestyle change..
- flatline 12y ago
  Indeed, couldn't that type of sleep deprivation alone account for the memory issues? I know it would for me. That and the hormone therapy seem like huge red flags. I know that the diagnostics for dementia-type illnesses are usually rather imprecise, but it seems ominous for the study that one of the few patients had such an abnormal lifestyle to begin with.
CamperBob2 12y ago
This doesn't seem like a scientifically rigorous study, to put it mildly. Is this Hacker News or Alternative Health News? At what karma level does one gain the ability to downvote stories? Anyone know?
- tokenadult 12y ago
  At what karma level does one gain the ability to downvote stories? Anyone know? No one has enough karma to downvote stories. Hacker News isn't set up to allow downvoting stories. Some users can flag stories, which has the partial effect of making stories slide down the front page a little faster (and autokilling the stories if enough users flag them).
  - CamperBob2 12y ago
    I don't want to flag stories like this when they don't actually violate the terms of use. But IMHO, there should be some way for users to express the popular "Why is this on Hacker News?" sentiment without cluttering up the comment thread. Otherwise, we'll just end up with upvoting cabals, and I'd argue that this story is likely to be a prime example of such.
    - tokenadult 12y ago
      That's one of the functions of flagging. I learned from some veteran participants on Hacker News to flag more stories about politics--even if they relate to startup industry--than I used to. That doesn't always work, but it seems to help.

by sogen 12y ago

jobu 12y ago

One more bit that seemed important: His laboratory has found evidence that Alzheimer’s disease stems from an imbalance in nerve cell signaling: in the normal brain, specific signals foster nerve connections and memory making, while balancing signals support memory loss, allowing irrelevant information to be forgotten. But in Alzheimer’s disease, the balance of these opposing signals is disturbed, nerve connections are suppressed, and memories are lost. This is a theory that I hadn't heard before, but it makes sense. I'm wondering if this signaling imbalance is something that could discovered in a test or scan, and if so, how early?

bostonpete 12y ago

I don't know how to interpret this. The fact that better diet, exercise, and sleep can improve cognitive function is well-known, right? Is there any reason to believe that this isn't just yielding short-term benefits that seem to counteract the decline rather than reversing the memory loss associated with Alzheimer's?

Retric 12y ago
It's a study using 10 people. So the best way to interpret it is to ignore it. However, "One potentially important outcome is that all six of the patients whose cognitive decline had a major impact on job performance were able to return to work or continue working without difficulty." which suggests a significant improvement even if it was simply temporary.
autism_hurts 12y ago
Here's the shocker: they're not short term.

drzaiusapelord 12y ago

>6) she increased her sleep from 4-5 hours per night to 7-8 hours per night; This alone probably accounts for everything. My god, even a healthy person at 4 hours of sleep is a mess. Doubling that is a major, major difference. The difference for me between 6 and 8 is like night and day, especially from a memory point of view. I can't imagine 4-5 for a long stretch, let alone as my regular sleeping pattern. I wonder if caffeine abuse is a factor here. I meet a lot of older folk who can drink 10+ cups of coffee a day. I really don't think they have that strong of a tolerance. I think it just props them for a while due to poor sleep and they get used to be being stimulated and cranky instead of addressing their sleep issues.

bane 12y ago

I'm curious about #11. Any ideas why that would be part of the program?

JamesBarney 12y ago
There is a link between dental hygiene and cognitive function. This is caused because bad dental hygiene leads to a bacterial infection in the mouth which in turn leads to large amounts of inflammation which damages the brain in addition to the cardiovascular system.
lvevjo 12y ago
There is some evidence of a correlation between oral hygiene and Alzheimer's: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/264164.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/264164.php Basically, people with poor oral hygiene are more likely to develop Alzheimer's than people with good teeth. You might have heard about a similar study that found a link between oral hygiene and heart disease. The theory, at least in that case, is that bad oral hygiene causes chronic long-term inflammation throughout the body, not just in your gums. This might increase risk of heart disease. Without looking at the data, I would guess that the same theory applies to Alzheimer's and maybe other diseases. The usual caveat about correlation != causation applies of course.
- sogen 12y ago
  Wow. Thanks for that tidbit
- eruditely 12y ago
  ?? If Alzheimer's is related to memory & executive functioning(probably is) then the people who are likely to develop Alzheimer's are likely to have poor oral hygiene. Oral hygiene is a good proxy for people who know it's important, but somehow still forget. A solid proxy for executive functioning decline, executive functioning in general, working memory, and a cluster of other things.
paulsutter 12y ago
As for #11, Non-flossed teeth are a material source of inflammation in the body. Inflammation has been shown to be a significant driver of several health conditions [1] including arterial clogging (ie, that cholesterol itself only starts to "stick" in the presence of inflammation). Arterial clogging is an issue in the brain as well as the heart. Poor dental hygeine is correlated with heart attacks, for example. Avoiding simple carbohydrates (#1) is primarily important to control blood sugar (elevated blood sugar has many detrimental effects, both short term and long term [2]). But fructose and alcohol, also simple carbs, are metabolized by the liver and the metabolic by-products are shown to cause inflammation as well [3] [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21047463 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21047463 [2] http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/diabetes/expert-blog/high-blood-sugar/bgp-20056519 http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/diabetes/exper... [3] http://ajpendo.physiology.org/content/299/5/E685 http://ajpendo.physiology.org/content/299/5/E685

pizza 12y ago

(6) she increased her sleep from 4-5 hours per night to 7-8 hours per night That's a huge lifestyle change..

flatline 12y ago
Indeed, couldn't that type of sleep deprivation alone account for the memory issues? I know it would for me. That and the hormone therapy seem like huge red flags. I know that the diagnostics for dementia-type illnesses are usually rather imprecise, but it seems ominous for the study that one of the few patients had such an abnormal lifestyle to begin with.

CamperBob2 12y ago

This doesn't seem like a scientifically rigorous study, to put it mildly. Is this Hacker News or Alternative Health News? At what karma level does one gain the ability to downvote stories? Anyone know?

tokenadult 12y ago
At what karma level does one gain the ability to downvote stories? Anyone know? No one has enough karma to downvote stories. Hacker News isn't set up to allow downvoting stories. Some users can flag stories, which has the partial effect of making stories slide down the front page a little faster (and autokilling the stories if enough users flag them).
- CamperBob2 12y ago
  I don't want to flag stories like this when they don't actually violate the terms of use. But IMHO, there should be some way for users to express the popular "Why is this on Hacker News?" sentiment without cluttering up the comment thread. Otherwise, we'll just end up with upvoting cabals, and I'd argue that this story is likely to be a prime example of such.
  - tokenadult 12y ago
    That's one of the functions of flagging. I learned from some veteran participants on Hacker News to flag more stories about politics--even if they relate to startup industry--than I used to. That doesn't always work, but it seems to help.