Alzheimer's Cause Identified?

JediJeremy writes "Naturehas this article on the possibility that researchers have identified the cause of Alzheimers. Their research says that amyloid beta, a protein in the brain, may cause plaques and makes an enzyme -BACE1-that causes dimentia. In the study mice, those without BACE1 did not get dimentia, while the others did. The article also says that there are current market drugs that can stop BACE1 production and all that needs to be done is for a human trial to begin. Looks like there is hope for those that suffer."

Comments

Relosing one's mind

[G4from128k]

One of the ugly little side effects of dementia correcting drugs is that they eventually stop working. The drug helps the patient for a while (they regain functioning) but then the mind inevitably succumbs to age a second time. Patients and family get to suffer through the process of losing their mind, memories, and personality a second time.

I can only hope that this drug helps patients before they suffer a decline in mental faculties -- going through it once is bad enough, losing your mind twice is hell for both the patient and their loved ones.

Re:Relosing one's mind

[DrJAKing]

I don't think anything can give you back brain function lost through dementia. The aim of anti-Alzheimer's treatment so far has been to slow down (or ideally stop) the decline. That means the trick is to spot it early enough, and there are quite a few projects developing tests for this. But reversing the damage is another matter; initially what is lost tends to be memory, and it may be that once the affected brain regions have been damaged, the memories are lost for good.

Re:Relosing one's mind

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I think you're thinking of parkinson's correcting drugs. They exhibit the funny bounce effect alright, but parkinson's isn't like alzheimers. Parkinsons sufferers lose reliable motor function, alzheimers lose reliable mind function. Not nice :-(((((

Great news!

[Anonymous Coward]

What was the news again?

hopefully

[Anonymous Coward]

nature didn't misspell dementia.

twice.

I think this is a symptom and not the problem!

[mistert2]

But this sounds more promising than cooking with aluminum pots and pans.

I question the high rate of this problem and the high rate of TV watching of its victims. I don't think TV builds up the plaque in the brain. I think it comes down more to life style.

The progression of this disease is quite depressing. I bought a house from a couple, and the wife was getting into to the later stages. They moved next door to their daughter, because he could hardly leave the house.

I hope this drug doesn't just delay the disease, we need a cure. I want to start watching TV again.

Don't you ever wonder if your starting to get this. Walk into a room and forget why you are there.

Don't you ever wonder if your starting to get this. Start posting and .....

Re:I think this is a symptom and not the problem!

[morgandelra]

Umm, I'd have to say look at your friggin' teeth moron. Human's are omnivores, our teeth are designed as omnivores deal with it. If we where meant to be vegetarians, how come we cannot digest cellulose? And how come we can subsist on meat alone? Inuit traditionally ate almost all meat diets, and it seems they did rather well, unless your gonna say that inuit are not human....

Re:I think this is a symptom and not the problem!

[xyzzy42]

I am a vegetarian. Your "facts" are incorrect. Linda McCartney is probably the most well-known vegetarian to succumb to breast cancer. Vegetarians have a reduced risk and delayed onset of dementia according to this study http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8327020&dopt=Abstract The risk is not zero however.

Re:I think this is a symptom and not the problem!

[AllUsernamesAreGone]

Yes, and I'm sure that you could tell us a lot about using the energy of crystals and the amazing powers of homeopathic medicine..

Now, if you'll excuse us, some people actually prefer real science, based on research and evidence than your so-called "facts".

Re:I think this is a symptom and not the problem!

[sharkdba]

The human body was not designed to eat meat...

Normally I don't read @ -1, nor do I reply to AC posts, but this is a very interesting topic, and what you said is a common myth I've seen repeated too many times:

Without going into positive or negative aspects of eating meat, you can't deny biological facts. Human body WAS (I would say "IS", but you used past tense) designed to eat meat. Ever looked at your teeth? If humans were designed to be vegetarians, our teeth structure would be different. Some teeth exist only so we can process meat. Check with any dentist if you don't believe me.

Re:I think this is a symptom and not the problem!

[sharkdba]

Yes, and I'm sure that you could tell us a lot about using the energy of crystals and the amazing powers of homeopathic medicine..

I agree the grandparent is way out of line with his statement, but I wouldn't disregard homeopathy that easily.

For many years western medicine did not recognize, and either ignored or laughed at any "alternative" medical treatments. This has changed though, check Harvard's Osher Institute

Just think how homeopathic cures came by: most likely people in the past discovered that certain things helped cure sick people. They might not necessarily understand why, and there were no easy ways to explain it, but as long as certain treatments helped, they were used. Today's science doesn't understand a lot of these things either, but just because it doesn't, it doesn't mean they are worthless. There is something to it, and one day science will help us understand what. I still consider our sciences, specially human sciences like medicine, psychology, etc., in just a beginner phase. There is still A LOT to learn about ourselves.

Re:I think this is a symptom and not the problem!

[venicebeach]

This is getting off topic, but I feel compelled to respond to this anyway. I agree that we need to keep an open mind these things, but the problem with homeopathy is that is based on a shaky premise and employs flawed epistemological techniques. The basic idea behind homepathy is that "like cures like": homeo (same) + pathy (disease). For cases like vaccines that use small amounts of a virus to stimulate immune response, this makes sense, but in most other contexts it does not. For example, the The National Center for Homeopathy recommends treating children who accidentally ingest poison with ipecac, which is basically poisonous itself and is used to induce vomiting. A classic homeopathic remedy. However, the American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends against using ipecac for poison treatment. Apparently it doesn't often get rid of all the poison and may cause the child to vomit up antidotes that actually do work, making treatment more difficult.

I'm sure there are many folk remedies that do work, but homeopathy as a principle seems kind of silly.

Re:I think this is a symptom and not the problem!

[bill_mcgonigle]

Additionally the human GI tract is another clue - the small intestine is good at digesting meats. The large intestine is good at digesting veggies. Omnivore, biology, get over it.

Of course, try convincing a rabid vegan with facts...

I like to point out the thousands of insects killed in the growing, harvesting and transportation of their "death-free carrots". 1 cow or thousands of crickets - make them explain how they make their value judgements about what can live and what must die.

"Life lives on life", somebody once said. How sad but true.

Re:I think this is a symptom and not the problem!

[hplasm]

Of course, try convincing a rabid vegan with facts...

Do Not Try to Approach a Rabid Vegan! Call the Authorities at Once! On No Account Try To Use Reason! This May Induce Biting!!!

Re:AB? Is anyone else chuckling about that?

[cicadia]

That is pretty funny -- You would think that Nature would know the difference between the German ess-tsett (ss) and Greek beta characters. They actually used 'ß' in the article.

OTOH, at least they got "dementia" right :)

This is great!

[ChopsMIDI]

This is exciting stuff.

My grandmother suffers from dementia. For a while (before her current medication), every few weeks she would have a dream where one of her children or grandchildren were out to kill her and she began mistaking them for real life.

Once we went over there and found she had hidden a knife under one of her table-cloths, and once she even ran away because she thought one of us was going to blow up her house.

It would be fantastic to see a cure.

Re:This is great!

[KDan]

Ditto to the wish for a cure. My grandmother has dementia too, and it hurts me just to see what she's degenerated into. :-( It's almost as if she was already dead - she barely recognises me or my father (her son), and even if she does, the only way she shows it is by looking at one of us for a long time. The only way in which she still seems to function as a conscious human being is that when my dad touches here and says "mom?" in the right tone of voice she slightly turns towards him and says "hmm?" like a normal human being would. But that's about it.

Alzheimer's is a terrible, terrible disease that I would not wish on my worst enemies...

Daniel

difference between preventing it and curing it

[astrashe]

I'm not a doctor, but it sounds to me that the treatments they're proposing would prevent the plaques from building up in the first place -- I'm not sure that they'd remove it once it was in place.

Re:difference between preventing it and curing it

[robslimo]

My father had high cholesterol and high blood pressure. As a result, he had a few TIA's (mini-strokes) that would briefly impair his speech and/or vision. His doctor(s) prescibed Plavix to prevent clotting, some anti-cholesterol drug(s) and blood pressure medication.

Rather than blow all that money on prescribed drugs, he was talked into chelation therapy by a local country doctor to remove plaque from his blood.

He had chelation treatments for about 3 years, during which time he also had more TIA's and decided to (almost) follow Dr's order by taking Plavix infrequently. After more TIA's, he finally had a massive stroke in June 2003. We found his 1 month presciption of Plavix about half full and dated January 2003. Now he is in a nursing home with no use of his left side and can't take care of himself at all.

Chelation is bogus! It was delevoped/tested by the US military as a possible treatment to remove heavy metals from one's system... it was dropped after being deemed ineffective.

Chelation IS NOT an FDA approved treatment for ANYTHING!

Re:difference between preventing it and curing it

[Tackhead]

> There's a book entitled "Toxic Metal Syndrome" that claims that these plaques can be removed using chelation therapy. The links are Google searches, so you'll be able to get a lot of viewpoints on both the book and the therapy.

There are also Quacks who sell Books and Bogus Cures based on Bogus Claims and Bad Science.

Here is a good place to start if you'd like to understand why Chelation Therapy and Homeopathy are bunk.

If you don't want the specific debunkings because you're afraid someone might have something negative to say about your particular "alternative health remedy" (which is obviously Not Bunk, because You're No Mere Tool of the Medical Conspiracy, and because You're Obviously Too Smart To Fall For Bunk, and because Science Doesn't Have All The Answers Anyways!), at least read the articles on How Quackery Sells 25 ways to spot it and do your own due diligence.

Pardon me but...

[El]

...how exactly does one determine whether or not a mouse has dementia? "Let's see now, where was that cheese again..."

Re:Priorities at Johns Hopkins

[CptChipJew]

I wrote a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine yesterday, as their latest issue only had one mention of kernel 2.6, yet 17 about medicine.

Another theory on the cause of Alzheimer's

[young-earth]

See here for a book that has hard data on the cause of Alzheimers and many other diseases. It's not popular with the mega food companies, as it puts a lot of the blame in their laps. But it makes a lot of sense.

It has to do with excitotoxins, such as glutamates, aspartates, and others when present in abnormal, imbalanced quantities.

can't be that new

[shaitand]

a google search for this enzyme and for amyloid beta
yields slews of not so new results relating it to the disease.

According to some of what I read green tea is known to inhibit the enzyme.

More microscopic images

[MrBlic]

Check out this alzheimers in a human brain microscopic slide. Click on the purple crosshair buttons on the left to be directed to some plaques and tangles: Click here

dementia correcting drugs eventually stop working

[frovingslosh]

One of the ugly little side effects of dementia correcting drugs is that they eventually stop working.

But here the drug isn't being used for dementia correcting, it's being used to stop BACE1 production. As long as the drug continues to do that, it holds the promise of preventing Alzheimer's. Of course, the last line of the Slashdot story (Looks like there is hope for those that suffer.) is off the mark - block BACE1 production and you may prevent the disease; but there's no reason to think that if you block production you somehow crue those who already have the disease and the plaques.

Step II after prevention

[nimblebrain]

I read a few days ago an article about figuring out how to bust apart the prions in BSE (mad cow) - but cannot for the life of me find the link. There's a similar disease in sheep, scrapie, which they've had some success using monoclonal antibodies to reduce the damage from.

That would be a next step in Alzheimer research - if we can bust apart the amyloid beta plaques in sufferers, we might not be able to get back all old function, but it would very likely help current sufferers. One we have the ounce of prevention - it would be nice to have the pound of cure, too.