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100 Year-Old Drug Halts Progress Of Alzheimer's
pafischer writes "Several Australian and UK websites are running articles on this story. I'm shocked that I heard it on the Baltimore rock radio station news, but don't see it on any of the big US new websites. 'Clioquinol, developed 100 years ago, can absorb the zinc and copper compounds that concentrate in the brains of Alzheimer's sufferers before dementia sets in, the study found.' Read all about it at ABC Radio AU, The Sidney Morning Herald, and The Age." Of course, the pathology of Alzheimer's is far from fully understood.
It was on the AP wire a while back.
100-year old drug means no patents. No patents means no profits. No profits means the drugco's won't TOUCH it. And in fact I wouldn't be surprised if we see some studies showing that it causes cancer or something.
Sorry folks. Alzheimer's won't get an effective until Pfizer is good and READY.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: How reliable is the study if it is only 36 patients?
COLIN MASTERS: This is, again, a pilot study, so our next step is to take it into a much larger series of patients, either this drug or a better drug we have in development. What we have on the drawing boards is a better version of this drug which is more effective and will probably go into trials hopefully before the end of this year.
I'd like to see the results after a much more extensive study has been conducted. If this really works, which at least with these preliminary tests suggest, it'd be nice to see alzheimers start to go the way if the dodo.
How could I say to men: "Speak louder, shout! For I am deaf!"? -Ludwig van Beethoven
As much as I hate to be a spelling vigilante, I really have to point out that it's spelt SYDNEY. It annoys me no end when people use 'i' in Sydney. Luckily, the Sydney Morning Herald get it right.
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
100 Year-Old Drug Halts Progress Of Alzheimer's Rather, all the drug has been shown to do in this study is stop a few of the many chemical abnormalities that are coincident with alzheimers. It is unknown whether these chemicals actually do anything to cause alzheimers. They may as well be a byproduct of it, for all we know. It is also unknown how else this drug alters brain chemistry and what the side effects of that could be. So proclaiming it a miracle cure is very premature.
Repeal the DMCA!
This is the same problem with lithium. Can't be patented, so it isn't profitable enough. Lithium has been shown to prevent beta-amyloid accumulation. While beta-amyloid plaques are only associated with (not known to be causative of) Alzheimer's, the fact is that lithium may inhibit the pathological process that produces such plaques far enough upstream to be just what the doctor ordered. One problem with lithium, however, is that it's tough on the kidneys. People of Alzheimer's age might not tolerate that well -- nor other side effects like tremors. Regardless, it's been in wide use since the early 70's for other things. I believe there's some NIH-sponsored thrust to conduct clinical trials with AD patients, but don't quote me on it. If you have access, search through this summer's issues of Nature for the review article on lithium.
1. Loss of short term memory.
2. Confusion.
3. Short term memory loss.
All things in moderation; including moderation
that Juan Antonio Samaranch was very pleased that Sidney was going to host the Olympic games but was very dissapointed when Sydney, New South Wales, Australia actually got them.
On the other hand, Sydney did a nice job hosting the Olympic Games.
Q:I was listening to a CD in Grip and it sounded horrible! What's up? A:Perhaps you are listening to country music
In fact, at least 13% of Alzheimer's cases are indeed CJD caused by mad cow. If larger studies were done, this percentage could end up much higher.
It may turn out that Alzheimer's is due to mad cow, or its predecessor, mad sheep (scrapie).
I hope that any new studies of this drug also focus on how it works in people versus CJD.
All over the beef-eating world, we are seeing CJD very early in people. Italy's only known case of CJD was a man who was merely 27 years old. Given CJD's incubation time, it would indicate that mad cow/BSE/CJD has been in Italy anywhere from 5 to 15 years.
For transmission between people, CJD is a blood borne disease, similar to HIV in how it spreads. This would explain why the ramp on Alzheimer's is so rapid and why so many young people are getting Alzheimer's.
Almost all the medical news regarding mad cow/BSE/CJD has been killed in the US. The simplest assumption would be that there is far more mad cow in the system than anyone wants to say. Only a ingenuous imbecile would think that out of over 35 million cows that are killed every year in the US, over the past 10 years or more, only 1 cow from Canada had BSE/mad cow. Especially considering that the US imports 1.7 million cows from Canada every year. And 1 million from Mexico. In both countries, Canada and Mexico, they have followed the US lead and perform near zero mad cow/BSE testing.
Anyhow, that is a lot on the crazy cow. I am hoping a fool's hope that Alzheimer's does not turn out to be caused by crazy cow. For if it is, there will be an epidemic of dementia in the USA unless a cure is found in the immediate future.
Of course an upcoming unstoppable Alzheimer's epidemic... would clearly explain the sudden and massive urge to offshore all jobs that require brain power to India, land of the sacred cow :-)
Someone give this guy a +1, Terrifying
It may turn out that Alzheimer's is due to mad cow, or its predecessor, mad sheep (scrapie). There is little to no chance that alzheimers is caused by mad-cow. Is it a related disease? Perhaps. The same disease? Not a chance.
The simplest assumption would be that there is far more mad cow in the system than anyone wants to say
This is stupid. The *simplest* assumption is that there is no mad cow in the system, and to assume that the above is an insane conspiracy theory. Perhaps the fact that there is no known mad cow in the system holds less weight with you than it should.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Over 13% of Alzheimer's deaths in the US are actually caused by mad cow. Using simple logic, one can see that there must be quite a bit of mad cow in the system to cause that many deaths.
Also, that there is mad cow in the USA on the loose is the simplest assumption because close to zero testing has been done in the US -- making the situation very similar to what happened in Britain/Europe before they found major BSE/mad cow infections.
Years ago in Britain and Europe, the same thing happened. The cows were not being tested, industry asserted for a long time that the meat was safe, time went by, people got CJD, there was a public uproar, the cows were tested, many cows were found to have BSE/mad cow, many cows were killed, and testing was finally implemented.
Great Britain and Europe learned the hard way. I've seen major resistance to testing American cows from the beef industry even though the extra cost would be very small. As with Britain, there can only be one reason that there is such resistance -- high mad cow infection rates.
The US has imported tens of millions of animals from countries that are known to have mad cow. The US has not done any real testing for mad cow. A certain percentage of female mad cows give birth to calves that have mad cow, thus producing domestic mad cow. Which again is not tested for.
Check the facts and you will see that there is a high likelihood that Americans have eaten millions of pounds of BSE/mad cow infected beef. Just the last tiny alert (from *one* cow) caused a recall of over 13,000 lbs of meat, some of which had already been eaten by a Seattle family that has come forward. It is not unreasonable to think that hundreds of families were exposed to mad cow just from the last tiny alert.
From a risk management perspective, it is very dangerous to be eating beef in the US. Not only are the cows not tested for mad cow/BSE, but it has been shown that over 13% of Alzheimer's fatalities are actually mad cow/CDJ deaths. The situation is very similar to what happened in both Britain and Europe, so there is little reason to doubt it will also happen in the US. Which means many infections and many deaths are on the way.
It's a 100 yr old drug that is already approved to treat *SOME* illness. Therefore somebody must make it already for that other purpose. Doctors can prescribe drugs for purposes other than that for which they were designed. They don't need anyone's permission. So where's the issue?
Eat at Joe's.
Unless some miracle like nanotechnology suddenly becomes available, the only cure I can think of is removal of your entire brain. This isn't a simple bacteria folks.
Though personally I'd prefer to live to 75 without alzheimers by taking a drug that kills me eventially, than live to 80, but suffer from alzheimers for the last 10.
I've known people with alzheimers. It isn't easy. Seeing people with fridges full of rotten food because the kids are coming to visit. (well they were 2 years ago when she remembers it from, and many times since, but this month they can't) Starting to drive somewhere, and half way there forget where they are going. And many more things, if you know someone with it, you know a lot of variations on it.
I would love to see some sources on these purported facts you are quoting.
Try clicking on some of the links then, especially the 13% one. It is filled with journal references.
"The simplest assumption would be that there is far more mad cow in the system than anyone wants to say"
This is stupid. The *simplest* assumption is that there is no mad cow in the system, and to assume that the above is an insane conspiracy theory. Perhaps the fact that there is no known mad cow in the system holds less weight with you than it should.
Inflamatory, perhaps. Stupid... who made you the bearer of all knowledge?
If one downer has Mad Cow Disease out of the 20,500 downers tested and there were 200,000 (estimate cited by our government) to 1,000,000 downers (estimate cited by non-industry sources) in the same year, then it doesn't take a degree in math to see that it is probable that there were many missed cases. The expected number of such missed cases is between 10-50, however with only a single reported case the uncertainties are quite large. Nevertheless, the public should be alarmed by the implications of 50-250 tons of infected beef having been already consumed by Americans.
In fact, at least 13% [cyber-dyne.com] of Alzheimer's cases are indeed CJD caused by mad cow.
A citation. Please. A *real* one, not the drivel that appears on that website you linked to, which I can only presume is your own. Go on, find that article in PubMed and let us read more than that. That's not evidence, it's a statement. I'm convinced that you're a hysterical idiot without the first bloody idea what you're on about. You might just convince me that your brains aren't completely rotted if you can at least produce a proper citation for this fact of yours.
*deep breath*
I don't normally lose my rag with people like this, but *pul-lease*. As a science graduate and clinical Vet student, this kind of thing really really does my nut. Hysterical, unfounded, poorly argued pseudo-scientific bullshit. You might as well argue that gastric ulcers and appendicitis are the same thing 'cos they both cause acute stomach pain. Come back when you have the first idea what you're on about, or better, don't come back at all.
for a specific purpose? I'm not suggesting that these companies are evil. But why invest money when the government could do the work? You have to produce quarterly reports. Pharmaceutical companies invest the money necessary to run clinical trials. This still needs to be done with "old" medications to use them in new applications. Granted, it isn't as expensive as developing a drug de novo, but it takes people and resources away from developing far more profitable solutions. On the other hand, there will always be the incentive to build a better mouse trap. Companies will continue to search for "New and Improved!" drugs that have fewer or more palatable side effects, need fewer doses, etc.
Alzheimer's do get amyloid plaques, but, as far as I can recall, do not get spongiform damage, like that associated with BSE, human BSE, kuru, scrapie, etc. Am I wrong?
No, I meant sources for the purported facts, such as....
"In fact, at least 13% [cyber-dyne.com] of Alzheimer's cases are indeed CJD caused by mad cow. If larger studies were done, this percentage could end up much higher."
The study that the poster is quoting has nothing to do with the statement that mad cow disease could be a cause of CJD. That study merely claims (and probably rightly so) that a certain small percentage of diagnoses of Alzheimer's disease turned out to be CJD instead. No mention is made of beef, cows, or mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephaly).
However, a Google search reveals that the study *is* widely quoted by opponents of beef consumption, animal rights activists, and the "organic" foods industry, in an effort to claim - through logical fallacy - that BSE is a direct cause of CJD, and that CJD is widespread in the U.S. already.
So, once again, I would like to see some citations of studies which directly show that the poster's assertion is true - namely, that BSE is widespread in the U.S., and that it has already caused numerous cases of CJD here.
I googled the paper mentioned in that cyber-dyne link, and found that in numerous other articles, that paper is referenced for the sole purpose of quoting the 13% statistic which results from a sample of 46 individuals.
The abstract is listed in PubMed, but does not purport to make any statements on mad cow/BSE.
The major cost of new drugs is not research but advertising. Period. Junkets for doctors, samples, television, radio and print ads. It's an undisputed fact that the major drug companies spend twice as much on advertising as on drug development. Ever notice that Viagra's practically the official sponsor of Major League Baseball? That's not cheap.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
This discussion from earlier cited some new research that suggests that some nano-particles can migrate directly into the brian via the olfactories... can anybody think of a good source of nano-sized "zinc and copper compounds that concentrate in the brains of Alzheimer's sufferers" - industrial, natural, or otherwise?
As you are going into some sort of medical field, I hope you learn how to be a pro-active thinking sort of person, not just a reactive "lose your rag" naysayer.
Let me remind you from your study of the history of science that you know many ideas that turned out to be right at first met violent opposition from the scientific community. History has shown us that many scientists do very poorly at considering and accepting new ideas. At least in your ability to reject new ideas, you seem well on the way to being a good run of the mill mediocre scientist.
Stanley Prusiner, the scientist who coined the term prion, originally speculated that Alzheimer's may in fact turn out to be a prion disease. This speculation came in the mid 1980's.
Of course you know that Stanley Prusiner was award the Nobel prize for his work with prions, don't you?
I would at least consider the ideas of a Nobel prize-winning scientist, not reject them outright. It may not be that 100% mad cow = Alzheimer's as the body is a very complex system. However, mad cow could certainly be a leading factor in why Alzheimer's is growing at an amazing pace and being found in many younger people.
In today's most modern research, we are finding evidence that prion-like structures are involved with how memory works. Here's some information from a dementia site, note the links to Cell at the end.
Here's a December 29, 2003 recap from a government website of some of what is going on.
I could provide you with many many links and sources, but I suspect you will be a closed-minded doubter until either CJD rears its ugly in your life or you go ahead and do the research yourself.
Here are a few more places to start exploring --
#123400 CREUTZFELDT-JAKOB DISEASE; CJD
variant Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease Citations 1-10 of 66 total displayed.
That's all. If you eat beef, I would strongly urge you to do the research. Your life and the lives of people you care about may be at stake :-)
As the article says, it's possible that tens of thousands of cases of CJD in the US are going unrecognized.
Modern research is showing that prion-like proteins are involved with memory according to this article (note the links to Cell at the end).
There's a lot more information out there. It's not to say that everything is 100% understood at this point in time. What we do know...
If you are a beef eater, I'd suggest looking into the matter. Life is precious and as the British and Europeans found out the hard way... better not left solely in the hands of governments and industry.
So, the good news is that most Slashdotters aren't vulnerable to CJD, then!
~~~
Trolling at it's worst.
He (or she) asked for a source for your claims, giving her an article citation that proved or even claimed linkage between the two wouldn't have been out of the question. Ranting about his (or her) scientific shortcomings was completely unneccessary. In all areas of science background reading or citations are provided with all claims of proof or fact.
MCD has been here for many years.
Read the link below.
Statistically speaking, the odds that a cluster of non-related, geographically close group of people spontaneously contracts CJD is nil.
But, hey, some people believe in the tooth fairy.
I believe in Mathematics.
Of course the CDC will never admit to this, as it would be the end of the beef industry in the US.
http://www.rense.com/general47/smde.htm
Despite being a link to an NIH web page, the NIH actually archives most or all health-related stories submitted via UPI/Reuters/AP there, regardless of credibility.
As with most mainstream media, the news article cited no references, leaving the public sitting anywhere between apathy and hysteria with no real way to verify facts and separate those facts from mere unbased assertions.
The other link to dementia.com is very interesting. But that's only because it indicates that prions may play a normal role in normal memory behavior. Now, there isn't anything particularly surprising that this is possible, since evolution tends to take advantage of any mechanism it can (including that of prions). Still, it interests me that science may be a bit closer to understanding how memory works.
Still, none of the sources you have quoted provide a shred of evidence that any cases of CJD in the U.S. have been caused by eating BSE prion tainted beef.
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/news/010804_nw_cjcm
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sn
http://www.heraldsun.com/healthmed/34-432132.ht
There are clearly a number of Research savy people on /.,who should be saying things like..Small studies that purport some miraculous cure are a dime a dozen; real drugs that have a Theraputic index are rare. Example: About 20 years ago, a surgeon in mexico reports ASTONISHING, MIRACULOUS results tranplanting fetal tissue into the brains of parkinsons patients - people virtually frozen for years are playing tennis.
As a result, scientists around the world devote scarce $$ and time on followup studies ...and the result ? It dont work that well.
This alz study may be the one in a thousand that actually represents a real finding, but 1:1e3 aint good odds.
As to all this stuff about Li (aka lithium) I have seen Abeta1-40 aggregate in vitro, and it sure happens easily. Just to keep the stuff in solution, you need something like heptaflourobutyric acid as solvent.
translation: If metals promote plaque formation, it can happen with very low, trace concentrations, which implies that chelators (metal binding drugs) are not going to work, or at least chelation will not stop peptide from forming plaques; it might inhibit some protease, or some enzyme downstream of the plaque that is transducing the cell death signal
As to all this stuff about big pharma somehow blocking research on cheap Alz drugs... there are a lot of scientists and doctors out there with Alz+ parents; thats what you call motivation.
Well, apparently some poorly spelled words r xceptible in in cidnee....
Sorry I'm even offer topic....
STOP. You're being farmed.
learn it first. Autopsied Alzheimer's brain shows no sign of the prion-nucleated chain reaction that is characteristic of Mad Cow or other prion diseases. It is amyloid-beta that accumulates in Alzheimer's. And it isn't even known whether the amyloid "plaques" are causative or simply an anomalous by-product.
Be nice if this work on Parkinson's disease also. Which one of the articles showed some improvement also.
Additionally this person hypocritically didn't offer any information herself, didn't put an ounce of effort into making anything better, just into making insults and complaints. You don't just slam someone for bringing up a potentially critical issue, especially early on when not all the facts are known.
If you look at the other responses, people did actually use Google and look into what was referenced on the site that "Antimony" had an issue with. At least in Mozilla the amount of effort to do that is miminal, less than 5 seconds of work to get the search going. Of course to do a proper research paper on CJD/mad cow/Alzheimer's is out of the scope of a Slashdot comment. Prusiner and others are funded with many millions of dollars to do that work.
As for your own comment... calling me a "troll" because I point out a maddened complainer who also happens to be a hypocrite... is just classic. Anyone who doesn't agree with you is a "troll", eh? I may not have been "nice" in my answer, but being "nice" to "not nice" people is merely giving positive reinforcement to abusive behavior. That may be your gig, but it ain't mine.
I still don't understand why you don't link an article. It's not that complicated.
;)
The *point* of the post was that you had no scientific evidence in the post. Posting some wouldn't be that hard.
If you read the link I originally posted, there are excerpts from many medical publications. No, the references are not hyperlinked. But they are in text form, so it is a small step for the reader to highlight any particular publication reference and right click "Web search" (in Mozilla). Thus with a miniscule effort, the nasty naysayer could have explored all the medical publications. Note that many online medical journals require registration and/or subscription which may be why the author of the page I linked to does not have hyperlinks. Some of the references can be tracked down using the method I described above at other sites, though.
For example, one of the referenced publications on misdiagnosed atypical dementias is available on the NIH site.
Additionally in a later post, I provided a link to a site that contained 66 citations regarding CDJ and Alzheimer's. I am certainly not going to go through all 66 publications and find all the appropriate bits and pieces, compile them, and then post them here all because someone is too lazy to read through the supplied links (all of which are hyperlinked).
As I have said before, it is Stanley Prusiner, the Nobel prize winning scientist who discovered prions, who first suspected the linkage between BSE and CJD. There has been a lot of research, including the findings that CDJ is being misdiagnosed as Alzheimer's and other dementias. So if for some reason you think it is all a hoax, I would suggest looking into Prusiner's research as well as the research of other scientists in this subject area.
In sum, I have provided links or text references to nearly 100 pieces of information supporting what I originally posted. I would invite you (and any others) to do the reading and then continue on with research sufficient to your needs.
Cheers.
Mooooooooooooooooeeeeeeeeoooooooooooooooo
Sorry, but someone had to say it.
sorry, this drug is rediculous. Metal ion chelation is completely non specific for alzheimers, and completely neglects any sort of attempt at truly understanding the disease. In a certain way, this is even more heinous than drug companies, at least some of the time they are interested in a biophysical understanding of the phenomenon. This is based completely on bogus epidemiology and "post hoc ergo propter hoc" biopsy analysis.
Just because metal ions appear in plaques doesn't mean that they caused the formation of the plaques.
Did you consider diabetes, too? Diabetes also results from amyloid plaques forming, except in the pancreas. I suppose we should stop eating cow to prevent diabetes!
Pray tell, even in vCJD, how does the prion make it past the tryptic digest, into the bloodstream as whole protein, and then past the blood-brain barrier? That's quite a journey for a protein thats less than 1 ppt in cow meat! It's more likely that the person's own PrPc is in higher concentration as PrPsc due to to thermodynamic equilibrium!
I disagree with the above person's posting (see the diabetes posting below) -- but Alzheimer's abeta does show nucleation kinetics that are characteristic of *all* amyloid, including PrP. (mad cow/kuru/scrapie)
I suppose eating beef also causes gelsolin amyloid aggregation and ATTR (transthyretin amyloid aggregation diseases). There are a hell of a lot of amyloid diseases out there.
You should probably know that stanley pruisner is widely considered to be an *ass* in the scientific community, he stole his results from a grad student, and the person who did the seminal research in the field actually completed his results much earlier than pruisner.
Nonetheless, Pruisner himself (not long after winning his nobel), in a lecture at NIH proclaimed doubt that vCJD was caused by consumption of beef. The epidemiology doesn't add up -- why does vCJD only strike young people? If it has such a long incubation time, why isn't there a serious upsurge of vCJD cases in britain? (the cow slaughtering was *concurrent* with the human epidemic).
In fact, pruisner postulated that transmission was actually caused by tonsilectomies. Dentists often clean their scalpels with alcohol, which is not enough to denature prion protofibrils. This is possibly also wrong (because the victims did not share dentists) but it certainly brings into focus the ambiguity of what we know about BSE transmission.
while I disagree with the idiot who posted above you (see the diabetes post below), I have to warn you not to get excited about the "normal" function of PrPc in memory mechanisms.
This is total BS, because the PrP-knockout mice in mad cow studies don't show any mental retardation.
You'd think that if PrP were important in memory function, they would have noticed it.
understanding of any sort of science. Correlation does not a mechanism make. Diabetes is well known to have genetic and lifestyle components. It's probably not caused by any form of prion (for various biophysical reasons which I do not wish to enumerate here).
Diabetes can be induced in all mammals (carnivores *or* herbivores) except rats, simlply by ramping up their caloric intake, and in particular by increasing their sugar consumption. It's not uncommon for a vegetarian to get diabetes (usually due to lack of zinc intake).
What is terrifying is that there are people like you out there who spout pseudoscientific hypotheses which fly in the face of all available evidence to support their pet theories or poltical/philosophical agenda. You ignore healthy skepticism in my post about something which you believe in, in favor of unhealthy and unwarranted skepticism. You latch on to popular trends in the media (BSE scare).
I think your response to my post (and the trap into which you fell) make something painfully clear: Since you are so clearly wrong and easily suadeable about Diabetes, what faith can we have in your analyses of other diseases?
I pray that you are not a scientist or a policymaker.
Please do a close reading of my response. I only said you fell into a trap. I didn't set any trap. Unless acerbic sarcasm is considered to be a trap.
a l_science
Please do not try to marginalize my point of view by implying that I have mad human disease. And whether or not I use a named account has no bearing on the actual content of what I have to say.
"Good people put what they know on the table and work together to find out what
is real and to make each person's life better using the information and tools at hand"
Yes. Indeed. Learning the real cause of vCJD is the the challenge. It's just too easy to write it off as a "disease that is transmitted by crosspecies prion dissemination", because there are analogous diseases such as kuru.
The proposed mechanism for vCJD entry is so incredibly complicated and has so many obstacles to actually occurring that close introspection suggests that it's much more likely that it's a sporadic event. You put such a strict restriction on what constitutes a "real vegetarian" that it's not a surprise that probabilistically speaking, a "vegetarian" has not contracted vCJD. Remember, only 100~200 people have contracted it out of Britain's population of millions and millions. This is not a very large sample size, and the likelihood that Britain's small minority of "true vegetarians" has contracted it is low anyways.
If you still do not understand what the trap to which I'm referring is, I'd suggest some easy reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathologic
Perhaps this piece of epidemiological evidence will help convince you: Incidents of British Mad Cow Disease sharply peaked around about 10 years ago. Since the incubation time for vCJD is on the order of 5~15 years, why haven't we seen a continued, sustained increase of Mad Human incidents?
Finally, I would like you to know that, being a scientist (and not a politician, incidentally), I'm not sensitive to mad cow in particular, just the waves of delusional fanaticism upon which bad science propagates. This sets us back many years, and can cause many people unneccsary hurt. The most recent manifestation of this is the vCJD scare. There have been others, and there will probably be more. You can be sure I'll be at the vanguard of all of these battles, (futilely?) trying to hold the line.