I don’t believe the plaques have been shown to be prion based, but who knows what the transmission mechanism might be.
More relevantly, the etiology is still a mystery, and nobody knows if the amyloid β is a defense, cause, mechanism, or harmless side effect of Alzheimer’s. Drugs attacking plaque have not made a difference on the disease in clinical trials. In fact the plaque theory seems to have been supported by fraud (causing a president of Stanford to be ejected) and distracted research for years.
People are working on other causes, most of which lately has focused on the tau protein.
> The recent recognition of iatrogenic amyloid β cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) and Alzheimer's disease, caused by inadvertent seeding of amyloid β pathology following historical medical procedures
That doesn't explain why shingles vaccinations are (somewhat) protective against Alzheimer's.
Unfortunately the vaccine-dementia association is a spurious finding. See this presentation: https://youtu.be/qlTnnQytOJ0
The mechanism is that people with the shingles vaccine are less likely to visit the hospital (because they don't get shingles). Because they have fewer hospital visits they are less likely to receive an incidental diagnosis of dementia from a hospital.
is it? They extended the study from "just wales" to "all of UK" and I wonder if it's possible that in the rest of the UK, adherence to the strict week-of-eligibilty criteria was less strict than in wales.
> All of medical science still imagines a world where humans are in "God's shape", denying the fact that we are machines made of systems of smaller machines.
No, it’s that these systems of systems are so incredibly complex that we still don’t understand many of them deeply. And misunderstanding the relationships of systems leads to major side effects and unpredictability.
If we understood these systems then we wouldn’t have vague success rates on things like drugs or surgeries - we’d be able to say “based on all of these factors this is the treatment that works for you”. But we can’t do that, instead we have trials and shrug and say “it works for most people so it’s worth using”
- tissue rejection
- viruses can and do change cell level machinery
- cascading malfunctions of small things can have large results
Then theres the ethics of cloning humans and keeping them in a factory. No religion or superstition in this statement, but if theres consciousness or the possibility thereof then this is absolutely monstrous.
On the research side, 90% (or more)/10%. Overwhelmingly there’s little money to be made beyond a few outliers.
On the commercial side obviously money issues dominate (because the costs are enormous as are the commercial risks), but from my experience in the industry there’s a surprising amount of idealism too. Naturally, some people mouth that idealism to justify their avarice, but quite a lot are motivated by it.
I don’t believe the plaques have been shown to be prion based, but who knows what the transmission mechanism might be.
More relevantly, the etiology is still a mystery, and nobody knows if the amyloid β is a defense, cause, mechanism, or harmless side effect of Alzheimer’s. Drugs attacking plaque have not made a difference on the disease in clinical trials. In fact the plaque theory seems to have been supported by fraud (causing a president of Stanford to be ejected) and distracted research for years.
People are working on other causes, most of which lately has focused on the tau protein.
> The recent recognition of iatrogenic amyloid β cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) and Alzheimer's disease, caused by inadvertent seeding of amyloid β pathology following historical medical procedures
That doesn't explain why shingles vaccinations are (somewhat) protective against Alzheimer's.
Unfortunately the vaccine-dementia association is a spurious finding. See this presentation: https://youtu.be/qlTnnQytOJ0
The mechanism is that people with the shingles vaccine are less likely to visit the hospital (because they don't get shingles). Because they have fewer hospital visits they are less likely to receive an incidental diagnosis of dementia from a hospital.
is it? They extended the study from "just wales" to "all of UK" and I wonder if it's possible that in the rest of the UK, adherence to the strict week-of-eligibilty criteria was less strict than in wales.
Thank you!
Will watch the presentation later. It'll probably be my next "laundry video".
I recently had shingles so I wouldn't be needing the vaccine for quite some years, anyway, whether it protects against Alzheimer's or not.
It's quite painful, like a big part of one's body has been scolded with very hot water or steam. And afterwards, it is incredibly itchy.
I highly recommend the vaccination just to avoid the risk of that.
I'm definitely going to get it as soon as I'm eligible, regardless of whether it reduces dementia.
Whoa, that's more complex than I thought.
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> All of medical science still imagines a world where humans are in "God's shape", denying the fact that we are machines made of systems of smaller machines.
No, it’s that these systems of systems are so incredibly complex that we still don’t understand many of them deeply. And misunderstanding the relationships of systems leads to major side effects and unpredictability.
If we understood these systems then we wouldn’t have vague success rates on things like drugs or surgeries - we’d be able to say “based on all of these factors this is the treatment that works for you”. But we can’t do that, instead we have trials and shrug and say “it works for most people so it’s worth using”
> We could clone headless humans and have factories full of them. Transplants could cure all but brain cancer. Reverse aging too.
We literally couldn't do this if we wanted to
Agreed, this is just dumb and really really hard. Much easier to genetically modify animals like pigs or cows to make compatible blood.
You cant just replace and expect to solve issues.
- tissue rejection - viruses can and do change cell level machinery - cascading malfunctions of small things can have large results
Then theres the ethics of cloning humans and keeping them in a factory. No religion or superstition in this statement, but if theres consciousness or the possibility thereof then this is absolutely monstrous.
Developing a blood substitute for emergency transfusions seems like a 100X more tractable problem.
Japan's on it: https://www.medboundtimes.com/biotechnology/japan-universal-...
since we're making things up -- why don't we just spin up a program that trains a bunch of novice clerics to cast Cure Disease?
Your HN username should be in the dictionary under “Dunning-Kruger”.
loooool
Would you say that modern medical science is truth-motivated or profit-motivated? 50-50? 60-40?
On the research side, 90% (or more)/10%. Overwhelmingly there’s little money to be made beyond a few outliers.
On the commercial side obviously money issues dominate (because the costs are enormous as are the commercial risks), but from my experience in the industry there’s a surprising amount of idealism too. Naturally, some people mouth that idealism to justify their avarice, but quite a lot are motivated by it.