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.

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: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.

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

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!

[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.