Alzheimer's Transmission Pathway Discovered

Does this mean? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-02-03 03:58 · Score: 4, Funny

Does this suggest that it may be hazardous to produce soylent green from Alzheimer's casualties, in the same way that consumption of tissue from animals affected by prion disorders is considered unwise?

Re:Does this mean? by SJHillman · 2012-02-03 04:03 · Score: 5, Funny

Perhaps this is what makes soylent green so delicious? If so, then I consider it an acceptable risk.
Re:Does this mean? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 04:03 · Score: 1

Probably. And you wouldn't want to cannibalize them in the traditional way, either.
Re:Does this mean? by meglon · 2012-02-03 04:06 · Score: 5, Informative

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002355/

For some fun and tasty reading.

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Re:Does this mean? by interkin3tic · 2012-02-03 04:26 · Score: 5, Interesting

I've never heard of anything to suggest that Alzheimers can be "caught." A seminar I saw a few years ago on tau suggested that in order to form these aggregates of tau, you need to have a mutated form of it: normal tau does not start clumping up and killing brain cells (not entirely sure I'm remembering that correctly). It's only transmissible between cells which have the same mutant form of the protein. I don't know, maybe it's possible that material from alzheimers patients could make the disease appear sooner in people with the mutant form who would probably develop symptoms later.

The prion protein that is at the heart of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, on the other hand, that appears to be the normal protein misfolding. The diseased proteins seem to convince normal proteins to misfold.

So, as I understand it, the hypothesis is that if you were to inject material from an alzheimer's patient's brain into your brain, for example, the alzheimer's Tau would not cause your tau to start clumping up and would not cause the disease. If you injected brain material from someone suffering from spongiform encephalitis though, the proteins in your brain WOULD be coaxed to start clumping up, causing the disease.

Let's not test those hypotheses though...
Re:Does this mean? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 04:39 · Score: 2, Funny

I've never heard of anything to suggest that Alzheimers can be "caught." A seminar I saw a few years ago on tau suggested that in order to form these aggregates of tau, you need to have a mutated form of it: normal tau does not start clumping up and killing brain cells (not entirely sure I'm remembering that correctly).
Uh-oh! You better get tested for Tau proteins right away...
Re:Does this mean? by Hoi+Polloi · 2012-02-03 05:10 · Score: 1

Right away I also wondered if it was a prion-like issue with malformed tau proteins. Has anyone confirmed whether the structure and orientation (left vs right) of the free tau protein is identical to that of normal tau?
As far as I know tau protein is used to maintain microtubules in cells. Maybe something is damaging the microtubules and the free tau is just a result of this or the tau is malformed to start with and it results in cells dying from defective microtubules.

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Re:Does this mean? by Defenestrar · 2012-02-03 05:57 · Score: 1

Yes, we should further examine the tau and its power.
Re:Does this mean? by Arancaytar · 2012-02-03 06:48 · Score: 1

Call your health care provider if you have any walking, swallowing, or coordination problems. Kuru is extremely rare. Your doctor will rule out other neurological diseases.

Doctor: So... eaten anyone's brains lately?
Re:Does this mean? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 07:20 · Score: 0

Consider what an acceptable risk?
Re:Does this mean? by soundguy · 2012-02-03 09:25 · Score: 1

Hi, I'm your nephew. Please sign this power of attorney.

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Pesky protiens by Dave+Whiteside · 2012-02-03 03:58 · Score: 1

It's always the proteins ... Prions , Tau etc... can we not just ban them 2112 - year of the protein seriously though - it looks like a good start

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who where what when now?

Re:Pesky protiens by Sulphur · 2012-02-03 04:24 · Score: 1

It's always the proteins ...
Prions , Tau etc...
can we not just ban them
2112 - year of the protein
seriously though - it looks like a good start
So its Tau then. Sounds like six sigma work.

Awesome by chinton · 2012-02-03 03:58 · Score: 5, Informative

After watching my dad ravaged body (by bone cancer) and mind (by Alzheimer's), anything that may some day lead to prevention is great news.

Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 04:03 · Score: 1

Jesus, that is about as awful of a combination as I can imagine. Sorry to hear that... I would imagine (and have seen the effects) of someone losing touch on reality, and personally think that is one of the worst things that can inflict someone.
Re:Awesome by quark101 · 2012-02-03 04:07 · Score: 5, Insightful

Alzheimer's is a terrible disease, not just for the person who has it, but especially so for those who are close to the afflicted. The slow, degenerative, wasting of the mind is horrifying to watch, as the person that was once bright and lively gets turned into a shell of their former self. Not able to grasp what's going on around them, or who they're talking to, the person can easily become terrified, lost, and confused, made all the more painful by the fact that they don't know who their children are or why they're here.

I know that identifying the underlying cause and developing a treatment are often worlds apart, but I'm glad nonetheless to see this advancement, if merely for the fact that one day others won't have to experience the pain I did as I watched people I love succumb to Alzheimer's.
Re:Awesome by Rogerborg · 2012-02-03 04:12 · Score: 3, Insightful

I don't have anything insightful to add, but I feel compelled to say fuck you, cancer and double fuck you, Alzheimer's. Thank you for your attention.

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Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 04:32 · Score: 2, Insightful

I don't have anything insightful to add, but I feel compelled to say fuck you, cancer and double fuck you, Alzheimer's. Thank you for your attention.
Heh...yeah. Every single person in my family for the past 3 generations, with only two exceptions, both maternal and paternal has died in their early 70's or before from cancer. The exceptions: one of my cousins committed suicide, and one of my grandfathers survived into his 80's only to succumb to Alzheimer's. I got to watch a truly brilliant man, who I've always considered far more intelligent than I, become unable to understand the most simple concepts, followed by slowly becoming more and more unresponsive. Eventually, he wouldn't react at all to anybody visiting him, he would just sit there in his chair, or lie in a bed, or wherever it was that anyone led him to be. I can't think of a worst way to go.
My parents are still alive, but my father has already been diagnosed with prostate cancer (he's in his early 60's), and my mother pretty much refuses to go to the doctor for anything, because she figures it's only a matter of time before they find something, and she'd rather not know about it since she has already decided she would refuse to go through chemo anyway.
In other words, my genes suck, and as a result I feel strongly compelled to join you. Fuck Cancer and Fuck Alzheimer's..
Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 04:36 · Score: 0

How about growing up?
Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 04:44 · Score: 2, Informative

Triple fuck growing up
Re:Awesome by DrgnDancer · 2012-02-03 04:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

I don't mean to pry, but why on Earth would your mother refuse chemo? These days most cancers (not all, by any means, but most) are extremely treatable and survivable if caught early. It's unpleasant for a few months, but with a few exception you'll mostly always survive and be fine. It's not like it was 30 years ago where you were looking at 50-50 odds at best and the treatment was worse than the disease. I personally know literally half a dozen cancer survivors just among my family and people that I am close enough to to know their medical history. Most are as fit and active as ever now.

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Re:Awesome by thomst · 2012-02-03 05:09 · Score: 5, Interesting

quark101 opined:

Alzheimer's is a terrible disease, not just for the person who has it, but especially so for those who are close to the afflicted. The slow, degenerative, wasting of the mind is horrifying to watch, as the person that was once bright and lively gets turned into a shell of their former self. Not able to grasp what's going on around them, or who they're talking to, the person can easily become terrified, lost, and confused, made all the more painful by the fact that they don't know who their children are or why they're here.
I know that identifying the underlying cause and developing a treatment are often worlds apart, but I'm glad nonetheless to see this advancement, if merely for the fact that one day others won't have to experience the pain I did as I watched people I love succumb to Alzheimer's.
Amen to that.
Last August, my mother was diagnosed with "mild to moderate" Alzheimer's. I had been certain for some time prior to then that she had the disease. She would sometimes repeat as if it had just occurred to her a story she'd told me just minutes earlier, she'd get stuck trying to recall the names of people she'd known for years (such as her 22-year-old granddaughter), and was only strongly confident about the details of events long past. In November, she was examined by two doctors at the Copper Ridge Institute (which is affiliated with Johns Hopkins), which specializes in Alzheimer's research and treatment. She knew the President of the U.S. was black, but couldn't recall his name, thought my youngest sister was 40 (she turned 53 in December), and couldn't remember which day of the week it was (it was Friday).
I call her at least once a week, and she seems to deteriorate more every time I speak with her - and yet, she's still fundamentally the same warm, sweet, vibrant woman she's been as long as I've known her. Just ... a little confused. What I fear is that, over time, she will lose all the memories that make her that person. I've known several people with advanced Alzheimer's, and watched them become progressively emptier shells of themselves, until they're little more than slack-jawed zombies, incapable of caring for themselves, or communicating with others - and I don't want to see that happen to my Mom.
But I know it will, because none of these new discoveries will make it out of the lab in time to save her from the ravages of this loathsome disease. And that breaks my heart.

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Re:Awesome by Hoi+Polloi · 2012-02-03 05:13 · Score: 1

It is a truly evil disease. I think my mom was going down that path so when she died almost instantly from a massive stroke I saw it as a bit of a blessing for everyone. Beats watching her soul slowly get scooped out of her (and probably hellish for them too).

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It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Re:Awesome by sconeu · 2012-02-03 05:15 · Score: 2

Yep. When my grandmother died, after a long bout with Alzheimer's, my reaction was, "That's not her. That's a thing that *used to be* her."

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General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Re:Awesome by TheLink · 2012-02-03 05:21 · Score: 2

McDonald's supersize meals can work as a preventative measure. Take one daily and you are unlikely to die of cancer or get Alzheimers. ;)

p.s. you might die a bit earlier though.
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Re:Awesome by Prune · 2012-02-03 05:26 · Score: 1

Good luck, anon.

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Re:Awesome by jimicus · 2012-02-03 05:54 · Score: 2

Same thing happened to my gran.
It's like being forced to watch an extremely bad car crash in slow motion - so slow it takes place over the course of years rather than seconds. You know what's happening from quite early on in the process, you've got a pretty good idea of how it's going to pan out in the end, you can tell from the pace at which things progress that the end may be some time away and you're powerless to stop it.
Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 05:56 · Score: 0

My father, uncle and grandfather all died from cancer in their late 60s. My mother is 85 and has been slowly dying from Alzheimer's for the past 5 years. On good days she knows who I am. Those days are getting less and less frequent. Between cancer and Alzheimer's, I would have to say that Alzheimer's is worse.
Re:Awesome by jimicus · 2012-02-03 06:03 · Score: 2

It's not as simple as that.
It's much easier to successfully treat cancer in its early stages. Which is great if you're "lucky" enough to be struck down with a type that tends to be easily detectable at early stages. Testicular and breast cancer fall into this category - it's pretty damn obvious if you've got a lump on one of your testicles.
Cancers that start deep inside the body - things like lung, liver, pancreas cancer - often don't show much in the way of symptoms until you're at a pretty advanced stage. By which time you'd be well advised to get your affairs in order.
Source: No particular expertise, but my wife works in radiotherapy and treats people with cancer all day long.
Re:Awesome by cyberchondriac · 2012-02-03 06:48 · Score: 1

Exactly. My mom just died last November, after languishing in a nursing home for 10 freakin' years with it. It's surprising she lasted that long, because she was pretty bad off when my dad put her in. (He died 5 years later.)
In those last years, she was pretty much a zombie, or a human shell, hadn't made a coherent sentence in years, and finally stopped even trying to speak a single word.. she seemed to sleep a lot, but I don't know everything that happened when I wasn't visiting. She so didn't deserve that tortuous end, not that anyone does. I would hope I'd die long before it got that bad.
If you don't have your own mind, what do you have? Is there really even a "you" anymore? I imagine few things are worse than getting slowly erased over a number of years.

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Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 06:51 · Score: 0

Sorry for your loss, but you are indeed correct to consider it a lucky thing that she went that way. I watched my gran live for several years after forgetting everything and everyone (fundamental personality was the last thing to go). While in the earliest stages of Alzheimer's, my mom had a nearly-fatal event like that (blood clot) but recovered fully. I know I'm not alone among my siblings in guiltily thinking... "if only..." Unfortunately she is otherwise healthy as a damn horse and will probably repeat what my gran did over the next 5-10 very expensive years.
Re:Awesome by HapSlappy_2222 · 2012-02-03 07:00 · Score: 1

I feel for you, friend. My father, too, fought with cancer for a long time. He had a few types (melanoma, colon), but the biggie was an aggressive type of brain cancer. He survived several surgeries to remove the tumors, earning himself a skull plate and permanent baldness in the process. I was, of course, happy to have him continue to be in my life, but the damage to his personality, memory, motor control, and emotional capacity was truly devastating; it was much like my dad wasn't my dad anymore, not entirely. He probably shouldn't have continued to drive, but... he fell asleep at the wheel narcolepsy-style some years later, and complications led to his death (much more to that story, actually, but I digress).

Anyway, the situation was readily comparable to symptoms of Alzheimer's, which my father's father started to develop at an early age (late 50s). I never really knew my grandpa; just stories I'd hear in the rare lucid times or from family members.

Anybody who's had to suffer along with someone who has Alzheimer's knows what true strength is, and how draining it can be. Watching someone who's been a powerful force in your life slowly wither mentally is just about the most heartbreaking thing you can go through. You don't really ever get over it.
Re:Awesome by HapSlappy_2222 · 2012-02-03 07:21 · Score: 1

As someone who's been there, take your strength from the "good days" and be aware that you are showing your love in the purest way possible by being there for her on the "bad days". Whatever you do, don't let despair win, and remember that even though your mother may change further, being there for her is helpful for both of you.

Also, your mom will likely stay the same warm, sweet, and vibrant woman, but she may revert to past personality traits that she's long put behind her. In fact, I could actually have fun with my grandfather during these times, as I got to see a side of him I'd never known. She also may get angry (like, nuclear-grade angry) and not know why. I've always thought of the anger as the mind grasping what's happening, and railing against it, and it's helped me to stay calm and be patient. She'll need you even more then.

Who knows though? Alzheimer's follows a different path at different speeds for different people. No matter what happens I salute you for hanging in there.
Re:Awesome by HapSlappy_2222 · 2012-02-03 07:30 · Score: 0

That phrase you hear so often, "caught early", is just as likely as "caught late". People really do need to see their doctors and get screened with mammograms and colonoscopies to find these diseases as early as possible. But for someone who finds they're already in stage 4 by the time they're diagnosed, the decision to go through chemo, or not, is usually a cosmetic one.

I think it could be helpful to think of "cancer survivors" in discrete groups: First, the folks who caught it early, went through treatment, eradicated the invasion, and stay on top of it the rest of their lives.

Second, the folks who never dreamed it could happen to them, got sick, found the type and depth of the disease, and STILL fought and fought to survive against all odds. Both groups are admirable and strong, but the second group (who admittedly could been in the first group with an ounce of prevention) and the victims who die are the ones who showcase how loathsome cancer truly is.
Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 08:43 · Score: 0

Yes, some cancers are indeed treatable, others are not. Chemo and radiation are poisons themselves. I saw what they did to my dad who had small-cell lung cancer. His choice was: no treatment and live another 3-6 months, or get treatment and live for another year. He chose the treatment. What he traded for extra time on earth was shear misery and pain. Given the choice, I will take less time with a better quality of life for that short period.
Re:Awesome by DrgnDancer · 2012-02-03 09:42 · Score: 1

I suppose I should have been more specific. Certainly there are form of cancer, or stages of cancer, where accepting treatment is simply an uncomfortable way to prolong the inevitable. The implication in the GGP though is that his mother is deliberately avoiding doctors and potential diagnosis, because she intends to refuse treatment under almost any circumstances. It's one thing to rationally look at your options, realize that you have stage four small cell lung cancer, and extending your life for a few months of pain isn't worth it. It's another thing altogether to just ignore your health because you assume that whatever you get won't be treatable. Many, many people survive cancer. Many people don't, and when or if the diagnosis comes I completely agree that you should make rational choices based on likely prognosis; but at least get the checks and understand your options.

--
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Re:Awesome by Dr.+Joe · 2012-02-03 11:26 · Score: 1

Thomst: I feel for you. My mother developed Alzheimer's some years ago and died from it. If you have not read The 36 Hour Day, you may want to get it. Understanding your mother's humanity and growing lack of control over her own life are the most important things you can use to help her. I was very lucky in being of a mind not to try to change my mother's behavior, and instead to help her experience as complete a life as she could. My best wishes go with you.
Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 12:45 · Score: 0

> and yet, she's still fundamentally the same warm, sweet, vibrant
> woman she's been as long as I've known her. Just ... a little
> confused.
after seeing a couple family members in their 90s lose their memory and take on various forms of dementia (to the point where they only really remembered things from when they were younger than 20-30), one thing that really struck me was that their personality was intact even though they didn't know what was going on around them.
for example one great aunt loved meeting people and had a wicked sense of humor, and both those things remained and she was still great fun to visit and have a conversation with. (she just was really excited to meet her "new" grandkids over and over again about ever 10 minutes)
When she asked after her husband or already-departed siblings it was a bit rough to let her know they'd died as it was like it was hitting her for the first time again, but out of respect I never liked the idea of blatantly lying to her, and she'd forgotten again in a few minutes and was back to her happy self.
I found the idea that if they're a lovely person they'll continue to be a lovely person even if their life's memory was ripped away quite striking and comforting.
best of luck,
AC
Re:Awesome by GLMDesigns · 2012-02-04 02:08 · Score: 1

Couldn't agree more. My father has Alzheimers. He was a sculptor and tool-and-die maker who can no longer tell the difference between a chisel and a screwdriver. It's a sad, horrifying disease.

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Re:Awesome by thomst · 2012-02-04 06:04 · Score: 1

Dr. Joe commiserated:

Thomst: I feel for you. My mother developed Alzheimer's some years ago and died from it. If you have not read The 36 Hour Day, you may want to get it. Understanding your mother's humanity and growing lack of control over her own life are the most important things you can use to help her. I was very lucky in being of a mind not to try to change my mother's behavior, and instead to help her experience as complete a life as she could.
I'm sorry for your loss.
I'm not familiar with The 36 Hour Day, but I'm acutely conscious of my Mom's state of mind, and the fear and depression I know she's experiencing as her disease progresses. I try to be as supportive as possible, without becoming maudlin, whenever I speak to her. Lately, I've been urging her to record her memoirs as a legacy for her yet-unborn grandchildren. (It's something she's talked about doing for years, so it's really her idea, not mine.) I just want her to enjoy as much of her remaining lifespan as possible, and to face the progression of her disease with as much composure and dignity as possible.

My best wishes go with you.
Thank you. I very much appreciate your recommendation, your advice, and your good wishes.

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Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-04 11:34 · Score: 0

Yes, I know it is painful to see other human being suffer, much more when is your dear family and specially a mother that has been so good to you. I have privilege to be the one taking care of mom. I with my brothers and sisters try to put her in a nursing home, but the quality of care they receive is not the same as in home. I am the youngest of six children my mother had, one is already gone, we are left five, and I am the one closer to her, so I have decided to be the one to care for her. I don't miss any of the things she does or say, I treat her like a child, I figure if she was there for me when I was a child and thought me to care for others, why not care for her? It is not easy, but there are many blessings in it, my heart feels when she thanks me, when she blesses me. I give her lots of hugs and kisses, I tell her how much I love her, she calls me my little child, when she is in the hallucination state she sees me as a baby, calls my name, I asked her questions and my heart get feels with much love for her. The day that she lives this earth, I know she will be in a better place. I have asked myself why God still keep her here; the only answer I find is maybe to test my Love and Patience towards her and others. Maybe her body still here, but mind is somewhere where there is peace and quiet, where there will be no more pain and suffering. She is 93 years old now, and I know soon she will give her last farewell, and I know my heart will be at peace.

I, for one.. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 04:00 · Score: 2, Funny

I, for one, welcome our.. I, for one, welcome..

Tau by Ihmhi · 2012-02-03 04:03 · Score: 4, Funny

Xenoflesh in the human brain? Clearly the apothecaries have failed in purging this scum from our fellow men. The only solution is Exterminatus. The Emperor Protects!

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Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)

Re:Tau by Moheeheeko · 2012-02-03 04:19 · Score: 2

We told you this "Gearter Good" was a lie! This heresy has brought dementia to those who stray from the Emporers will!
Re:Tau by AndOne · 2012-02-03 05:42 · Score: 1

Deploy the Deathwatch! The Ordo Xenos protects.

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Re:Tau by oldmac31310 · 2012-02-03 06:52 · Score: 1

Hey, there's that new word 'emporer' again guys. What does it mean?

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Let me guess by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 04:04 · Score: 0

Let me guess... are they testing this on Chimps? Hail Ceasar...

Great news by ackthpt · 2012-02-03 04:05 · Score: 2

I'm certain Sir Pterry is following this with considerable interest.

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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar

Re:Great news by sandytaru · 2012-02-03 04:07 · Score: 1

That was my first thought too. Knowing what little I do of him, he'd probably be the first in line to volunteer for human experimental studies of this.

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Re:Great news by ackthpt · 2012-02-03 06:05 · Score: 1

That was my first thought too. Knowing what little I do of him, he'd probably be the first in line to volunteer for human experimental studies of this.
And not out of selfishness, but to benefit others with his experience.
I have attended a few of his readings, over the past 6 years and he had first explained he thought he'd suffered some kind of minor stroke, the following year he came through town with another reading and shed more light on his experience. Finally there was the "embuggerance" note posted publicly after the diagnosis of Early Onset Alzheimer's. He has tried many treatments and has been advocating Right To Die.
You can see how he has grown tremedously from his experience and is now a great champion of research and rights.
Well done him. I hope they can develop something to halt the progress of this insidious malady.

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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar

Notice where the study was done by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 04:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

It was done at a University by students who probably weren't paid. It wasn't done by a pharmaceutical lab. Remember that when the drug companies try to justify charging your parents $2000 for a one month supply of Alzheimer medication.

They spend more on advertising then R&D.

Re:Notice where the study was done by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 04:13 · Score: 0, Flamebait

Yeah, because 'found a protein' is totally the same as 'developed and tested a drug to fix said problem'. Dumbass.
Re:Notice where the study was done by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 04:14 · Score: 0

All this really means, is that the corrupt pharmaceutical and medical insurance industries will never allow anything useful from this to legally reach the common man.
Re:Notice where the study was done by Sockatume · 2012-02-03 04:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

While I agree that the pharmaceutical businesses is a complete disaster area in terms of cures-per-dollar, you can't point at one publicly funded study and use it as evidence of that fact. It's spectacularly irrational.

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No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Re:Notice where the study was done by geekoid · 2012-02-03 04:34 · Score: 1

A) This is a discovery, not a development of a treatment; these are different things.
B) So what? there marketing spends money; that i no way makes drug research cheap.

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Re:Notice where the study was done by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 04:34 · Score: 3, Insightful

While I agree that the pharmaceutical businesses is a complete disaster area in terms of cures-per-dollar, you can't point at one publicly funded study and use it as evidence of that fact. It's spectacularly irrational.
Uh, yes you can. Not on its own, but in conjunction with a larger body of studies that all demonstrate this point. It's not a smoking gun, it's just part of a larger body of evidence. But go ahead and call it "spectacularly" irrational if you want, I guess.
Re:Notice where the study was done by geekoid · 2012-02-03 04:35 · Score: 1

"pharmaceutical businesses is a complete disaster area in terms of cures-per-dolla"
based on... what? it's been the most successful way to produce reasonably reliable drugs ever invented by man.

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The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Re:Notice where the study was done by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 04:38 · Score: 0

If it was done by a Harvard biology grad student, then they were getting their tuition paid for as well as a stipend high enough to live off of.
Re:Notice where the study was done by Sockatume · 2012-02-03 04:40 · Score: 2

If you're pointing at "a larger body of studies" you're not pointing at one study any more, are you?

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No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Re:Notice where the study was done by Sockatume · 2012-02-03 04:42 · Score: 1

The last ten years have not been a good time for the metaphorical pipeline. I'm not sure what's goign to replace it - startups, spinoffs, and publicly funded grand challenges, probably - but business isn't cutting it.

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No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Re:Notice where the study was done by interkin3tic · 2012-02-03 04:44 · Score: 5, Insightful

We shouldn't trust pharmaceuticals, that's for sure. Between the questionably ethical testing in 3rd world countries, the highway robbery, the lobbying to the medical industry to push fairly worthless products, and, oh yeah, their old-fashioned bribery (I mean lobbying) of elected officials to keep their racket going, they are evil. I got laid off from Pfizer two days after Christmas years ago, so I'm not on their side.

Still, I have to point out that basic biological research is a different beast from true medical research. Clinical trials in people are generally very expensive compared to basic research. They take much longer too. Mass producing drugs is not cheap to begin with, and the standards have to be very high for pharmecuticals. 70% purity of a drug you're going to inject into rats to test the effect for basic research like this is acceptable often, but that's hideously impure for something you're going to be putting into people.

The biggest disadvantage pharmecuticals have is liability. No one sues you if one of your lab rats or plates of cells die, this is not the case if someone taking your medicine dies. You need to hire an army of lawyers.

They do have huge costs, and the risks are much higher. Again, they should be scrutinized, but I don't think it's fair to imply that just because a university lab has a result on Alzheimers means that drugs should be cheap.
Re:Notice where the study was done by Sockatume · 2012-02-03 04:47 · Score: 1

That should've been "business as usual".

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No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Re:Notice where the study was done by nahdude812 · 2012-02-03 04:58 · Score: 2

They spend more on advertising then [sic] R&D.
I hate this statement as a statement against the pharmaceutical industry.
Marketing 101 is all about Return on Investment. Marketing is an investment from which you expect a return greater than the investment. Very few large companies spend more on marketing than they get back out of it. This is just as true for pharmaceuticals as it is any other industry. That is the POINT of marketing expenditure. Maybe some companies have marketing departments which suck at their job. But that's not a problem with marketing in general, it's a problem with those particular companies.
So all that this statement says about anything is that our society pays too much attention to advertisements. A company that sends all their money into R&D at the expense of marketing will probably produce some pretty useful drugs that no doctors or patients ever hear about and so aren't used, so they don't sell as much, so they don't have as much money to invest into R&D.

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Re:Notice where the study was done by ColdWetDog · 2012-02-03 05:19 · Score: 1

No, the problem is that the drug companies have NOT been producing 'useful' drugs. They have mostly (of course, there are a few exceptions) been producing 'me too' drugs. Yet another acid blocker for your tummy ache, yet another ACE inhibitor for your blood pressure, yet another minimally modified anti depressant for everything else.
So when you don't have biology to tout, you bang on the advertising table. Put up pretty graphs about how much better your drug is than the existing drug and hope nobody notices that the scale is set to show a miniscule, clinically irrelevant difference. Put up shiny TV advertisements to a general public that will go for any drug / supplement / vitamin / device / religion that will make your life (or sexual experience) better / stronger / faster / closer to nirvana.
They're desperate. I'm sure they'd love to have a couple of 'blockbuster' drugs in the pipe, but it turns out to be damned hard to do.

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Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Re:Notice where the study was done by wintercolby · 2012-02-03 05:25 · Score: 1

Not that I'm a big fan of the way the Pharmaceutical Industry works these days, but its a lot less black and white than you suggest. Drug companies pay fellowships for students going to grad schools, sponsor labs and give grants to Chemical Engineering departments who publish work like this, and do their best to ensure a continued flow of talent and research. There is Federal grant money in there as well. Once the research is done, Chemical Engineers at the drug companies work on how to reproduce and mass produce compounds that are likely to have a positive effect based on this type of research. On top of the actual cost of research to bring these medicines to market there are administrative costs, facility overhead and regulatory overhead.

Many Pharmaceutical companies do come out with near clones of previous medicines and then get patents on them, and then market the crud out of those new medicines to get people to insist on them. The (sarcasm intended) glorious health insurance companies (end sarcasm) try to ensure that big Pharma doesn't always get away with it by putting medicines in tiers and insisting we lowly consumers actually step through the generics before filling prescriptions for these pseudo-innovations. The single best thing you can do, if you don't like how big Pharma gouges consumers for prescriptions, is to buy generic.

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Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know. --Aldous Huxley
Re:Notice where the study was done by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 05:34 · Score: 0

Their methods are pathologically directed away from developing an understanding of the disease, with an understanding a competitor has an advantage when trying to make a rival un-patented drug, but without they have to repeat the same amount of effort as you put in to get an un-patented drug.
For this reason thy use brute force style methods, try compounds until they have an affect, with only limited knowledge based refinement, and develop an understanding later only if it is necessary to improve the drug.
This is getting harder and harder, hence they are getting less profitable and their products more expensive, even as the technology to create drugs based on an understanding of the disease becomes cheaper. For this reason I think medical research efforts should be funded to a much higher level by the government, which can then hire out manufactures and cut the middleman, or allow its citizens to buy as they need. If the efficiency is as low as it appears then even if government only funds 20%(pensioners, military vets etc. +government employees) or so of the drug purchases it will still be a net saving in taxpayer money.
Re:Notice where the study was done by gorzek · 2012-02-03 06:00 · Score: 1

+5 Insightful to such idiocy! Slashdotters love a good platitude, I guess.

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Re:Notice where the study was done by Defenestrar · 2012-02-03 06:23 · Score: 2

You can't get approval from the FDA without showing some very specific pharmacology data. You need to show you know exactly what's going on at the lowest level or there's not a chance in bureaucracy that CBER or CDER is going to approve your new drug application. Theses days even the small molecule generics have to at least make a facsimile of the big boy's mechanism description and pay for someone on staff qualified to answer questions about it.
Re:Notice where the study was done by Defenestrar · 2012-02-03 06:36 · Score: 1

And if there isn't a generic available, one can be thankful someone took a very high risk of being able to make a lot of money in a short window selling just what was needed when nobody else had taken that chance before. It may not be the purist altruism, but it eases discomfort or saves life to the point where people are willing to buy it.
Re:Notice where the study was done by Defenestrar · 2012-02-03 06:44 · Score: 1

Not to mention that marketing (in pharma) drives up profitability but drops long term value. Actually, that link is probably a must read for anyone who makes claims based on the marketing is double R&D claim. (Actually, reading that link will likely tone down the quote based off of a snippet summary of a news article about this paper).
Nahdude812 makes some excellent points about marketing. Marketing pays for itself, and then it pays for other things (such as more R&D). If marketing is a net negative the company is being run so poorly that it won't be around long enough to make the third batch after approval.
Re:Notice where the study was done by Khashishi · 2012-02-03 08:25 · Score: 1

Students do get paid. Just not very much.
Re:Notice where the study was done by superwiz · 2012-02-03 18:53 · Score: 1

Why? This wasn't a discovery of a cure. It was a discovery of the cause. If someone provides a cure, why shouldn't they charge what they want?

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Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Re:Notice where the study was done by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-04 10:05 · Score: 0

If YOU don't trust pharmaceuticals, don't take them.
I, however, am willing to hand my money over to any company that produces the chemicals that SAVE MY LIFE. Do I care that my inhaler costs a hundred dollars? No. Because it probably cost millions of dollars to research and it keeps me from dying.
Pharmaceutical companies are not the pinnacle of all that are good in this world, but neither are they the demons that morons (like yourself) make them out to be.
Re:Notice where the study was done by Rich0 · 2012-02-05 08:44 · Score: 1

While I'd love to see some reform of the drug industry, it isn't quite as black-and-white as you make it out. First, all they discovered is a disease mechanism, not a treatment.
When somebody does come up with a proposed treatment, it will be after some modest amount of R&D money is spent (might be a lot, might be a little - chances are the study that nails it won't be expensive but all the work that didn't pan out will be). Now you have a drug candidate - a molecule that in a test tube does something that we think will block the disease. What we still don't know is whether it will work in real people, or if it is dangerous. Until you resolve both questions fairly conclusively the FDA won't let you sell it. Determining both requires a series of clinical trials that typically cost $50M or so at least. Often the first compound you test doesn't pan out, so you try another one (after being out some portion of the first $50M with nothing to show for it). Maybe you try 5 and none of them work. Maybe you get it right on the first try. Maybe you spend $500M and figure out that your understanding of the disease was off and it is a dead end.
In any case, once you do have a compound that you've proven to work, the FDA lets you sell it. At this point you're out an average of $100M or so.when you look at the stuff that did or didn't pan out. For something like Alzheimer's that will be easy to recoup assuming somebody else doesn't come out with a competing drug quickly. For a less common/chronic disease, or if there is quite a bit of competition, you might make at best a modest profit. Some drugs actually lose money - they were studied because it was thought that they would make money, but for one reason or another things went sour - they're still sold since every pill makes a marginal profit (manufacture for cents, sell for dollars), but it might or might not recoup the R&D costs.
I'm not saying that Pharma companies don't make a lot of money, but if yiou look at their stock it has been pretty flat across the industry for a decade - so it isn't like they're making it hands-over-fists for a while now. Drug R&D involves a lot of costs and most of the bigs ones start well after some university professor publishes the paper that will get the Nobel Prize. Much of that work is semi-routine, but it costs quite a bit of money and the NIH almost never funds it.
I'd be interested in seeing the NIH do some end-to-end drug testing from lab all the way to market, and then license the compound for free manufacture in the US, in poor countries, and in first-world countries that agree to reciprocate. The final pills probably wouldn't be free, but they'd have costs similar to aspirin/etc in most cases. We could then see how that model works out cost-wise. The NIH might even outsource some of the work to existing drug companies, but would retain all patent rights (basically it would be work-for-hire/etc) - avoiding the creation of bureaucracy and using existing expertise, but getting rid of some of the issues that result from the fairly regressive pricing model that exists for drugs.

Finally, some good news... by NIN1385 · 2012-02-03 04:08 · Score: 3

I was getting very depressed with all the bad news about the government and the ignorant shit they are doing. This is some refreshing news to end the week.

Hopefully I will see a cure for this disease in my lifetime.

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If carrots got you drunk, rabbits would be fucked up. - Comedian Mitch Hedberg R.I.P. 03/30/68-2/24/05

Known to be prion related by jfessler · 2012-02-03 04:10 · Score: 2

I haven't RTFA but "The studies indicate it's not a virus"??? Didn't we already know that?

Re:Known to be prion related by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 04:23 · Score: 1

There are earlier studies that show that tau propagates in a prion-like manner. I.e. the tau (bad protein) induces other protein to go bad as well, like with mad cow disease.
Re:Known to be prion related by retech · 2012-02-03 04:38 · Score: 1

My thoughts too. Since Margaret Mead had shown that CJ could be transmitted by eating someone's brain in New Guinea in the 1950's.
Re:Known to be prion related by jd · 2012-02-03 06:05 · Score: 5, Informative

We've known about tau protein's involvement in Alzheimers for decades. Specifically, we've known that the protein forms tangles which crush brain cells. That part is beyond old news. What seems to happen is that the tau protein "unzips" from its proper location, resulting in brain cells registering that there is insufficient tau protein in locations where it should be, in turn resulting in a loop that will kill everything in the area.
What is NOT known is why it unzips. My father's work in the late 80s, early 90s, showed that aluminum toxicity can cause the unzipping process. Later studies have shown that this is not the only pathway, but that there is usually something encased in the tau protein.
This has led to me speculating that this may have once been a feature, not a bug, that in early life this might have been an environmental detox mechanism (bind toxic chemicals in the area up in protein which is then ejected). This is based on the fact that the brain is unique amongst cells utilizing tau protein in that it has nowhere to eject bound-up toxins and that you don't see these kinds of tangles forming in other contexts where tau protein exists. It would also explain why Alzheimer's looks like it could be virally caused as it would end up with the same look and feel at the neurological level. On the one hand, I've read the papers, I've been involved in the research, I understand the science extremely well. On the other hand, neuroscience is a jealous discipline - even biochemists have a very tough time getting a hearing and I've far less standing than that in the biological sciences - and thus I do not expect this speculation to get looked at. (And, no, this speculation isn't Wikipedia-based. The original thoughts were written up when Gopher was the protocol of choice and really is based on hard, raw data collected in the field. I was, after all, involved in collecting it.) Nonetheless, this finding convinces me that I will prove to have been far closer to the actual mechanism than most of the recognized theories to date. (Yes I'm an old, arrogant, snobbish fart. Now fetch me a lawn so you can gerroff it!)

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It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Re:Known to be prion related by superwiz · 2012-02-03 18:55 · Score: 1

Well, we didn't know the exact cause. Since the disease slowly spreads throughout the brain, one hypothesis was that it was a virus.

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Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Re:Known to be prion related by neonsignal · 2012-02-04 01:10 · Score: 1

It was Daniel Gajdusek and Michael Alpers that showed that Kuru could be transmitted by brain material. Margaret Mead was not in this part of Papua New Guinea, and Kuru is not the same as CJD (although both are prion diseases with similar effects).

Now the meaning... by TWX · 2012-02-03 04:11 · Score: 1

...of the expression, "I may have Alzheimer's, but at least I don't have Alzheimer's," will change...

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Do not look into laser with remaining eye.

In America you can be cured of most diseases by countertrolling · 2012-02-03 04:12 · Score: 2

Provided of course, only if you can afford it.

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For justice, we must go to Don Corleone

Re:In America you can be cured of most diseases by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 04:16 · Score: 2, Insightful

Yeah, tell that to Steve Jobs.
Re:In America you can be cured of most diseases by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 04:22 · Score: 0

That was his own fault for being a complete retard and trusting homeopathy.
Re:In America you can be cured of most diseases by crmarvin42 · 2012-02-03 04:35 · Score: 4, Insightful

That was his own fault. He decided to try homeopathic voodoo instead of sound, scientifically-validated methods to treat his cancer initially. That resulted in an early diagnosis (with high probablity of complete remission) turning into a late treatment (with far less favorable odds). The key with most agressive cancers is early diagnosis AND early treatment.

Cases like this are where homeopathy changes from being mostly harmless, and therefore not worthy of much attention, and become outright dangerous.

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Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Re:In America you can be cured of most diseases by geekoid · 2012-02-03 04:38 · Score: 1

Naturopathy, not homeopathy... both of which are crap. Of course, the stage it was detected it's unlikely that actual treatments would have changed anything.

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The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Re:In America you can be cured of most diseases by countertrolling · 2012-02-03 04:42 · Score: 1

What part of most did you not understand? If I get a hangnail, I'm a dead man.

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For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Re:In America you can be cured of most diseases by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 04:48 · Score: 0

That was his own fault. He decided to try homeopathic voodoo instead of sound, scientifically-validated methods to treat his cancer initially. That resulted in an early diagnosis (with high probablity of complete remission) turning into a late treatment (with far less favorable odds). The key with most agressive cancers is early diagnosis AND early treatment. Cases like this are where homeopathy changes from being mostly harmless, and therefore not worthy of much attention, and become outright dangerous.
Well, except that he had Pancreatic cancer so even early treatments don't generally fare too well, long-term...

But he'd probably still be around for another year or two, had he been properly treated, instead of currently being worm food...
Re:In America you can be cured of most diseases by tragedy · 2012-02-03 04:54 · Score: 2

Well, he wasn't cured, but he lasted a remarkably long time, and managed to get a liver transplant that was very questionable given that he was dying of pancreatic cancer. Usually they don't give organ transplants to people with such a bad prognosis. Getting the liver may have extended his life by about 2 years. It very well could have extended a different patient's life by twenty. He managed to get the liver by spending a lot of money to fly around and visit a lot of different doctors and get on a lot of different waiting lists. Whether he did anything even more questionable than just gaming the system is unknown.
Re:In America you can be cured of most diseases by Sockatume · 2012-02-03 04:55 · Score: 1

It wasn't homeopathy in Jobs' case, it was some sort of special dietary regimen.
I've heard the argument that Jobs was unlucky enough to have a form of the cancer that probably would've have been much better with earlier treatment; that probably doesn't apply to most.

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No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Re:In America you can be cured of most diseases by mjr167 · 2012-02-03 05:26 · Score: 1

Jobs was a well educated, intelligent man sounded by well educated, intelligent people with a vested financial interest in keeping him alive. I seriously doubt he based his entire treatment off Joe Bob's Snake Oil Voodoo and Cancer Treatment Center of the Internet and Wishful Thinking. Rather, I'm sure he looked at his options and made a personal decision based on his personal wishes and situation. His treatment was his own personal choice. The decision was not pushed on him nor was he ill-informed. I'm sure that many people close to him probably even advised him against it. There is no guarantee that traditional treatment would have saved him and probably would have lowered his quality of life. Conventional cancer treatments come with a price and individuals should be able to chose if it is worth paying.
Re:In America you can be cured of most diseases by wootcat · 2012-02-03 05:57 · Score: 1

Except that he had the rare form of Pancreatic cancer which, from my understanding was highly treatable and had a high survival rate - given that you treated it early.

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Re:In America you can be cured of most diseases by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 06:09 · Score: 0

Doesn't mean all his money would have helped. Yes, the surgery might have saved him... for now.
The point is, there are some conditions (called "incurable") that oddly no amount of money will cure.
Re:In America you can be cured of most diseases by jd · 2012-02-03 06:20 · Score: 1

Being intelligent doesn't stop you from being wrong. Steve Jobs' choice was indeed his own, but it was a stupid choice and a wrong choice that he himself later admitted was going to kill him. In his case, his arrogance overrode his intelligence, and he admitted as much. Having said that, his knowledge of cancers was probably extremely limited. Intelligence doesn't grant you skills or knowledge, it merely grants you the ability to attain them faster -- within certain constraints. Intelligence is often limited to specific domains in any given person, leaving them average or below-average outside of those domains. Learning won't change that, nor will personal choice. It's a hard-wired limitation and that's what you've got.
It is very unlikely Jobs' form of intelligence would function well in the biological sciences. Biology isn't modular or feature-driven. Pathways are long, complex and highly interactive. The kind of amazing hyper-focus that Jobs was capable of is exactly the wrong way to deal with billion-variable hybrid systems like the human body. It's ideal for engineering, where you can black-box everything you don't want to consider right now, but it's useless where there are no boxes to draw.

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It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Re:In America you can be cured of most diseases by Megane · 2012-02-03 06:31 · Score: 1

Indeed. Pancreatic cancer is some nasty shit. By the time you can feel pain from pancreatic cancer, it's already too late. As in you have only a few months to live at that point. In 2010, we lost Satoshi Kon to it. Steve's cancer was (as I understand it) caught much earlier than normal, but he wasted that extra time on a stupid "natural" "cure".

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Re:In America you can be cured of most diseases by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 07:02 · Score: 0

unlucky enough to have a form of the cancer that probably would've have been much better with earlier treatment
That's not unlucky.
Re:In America you can be cured of most diseases by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 07:15 · Score: 1

Being intelligent doesn't stop you from being wrong. Steve Jobs' choice was indeed his own, but it was a stupid choice and a wrong choice that he himself later admitted was going to kill him. In his case, his arrogance overrode his intelligence, and he admitted as much. Having said that, his knowledge of cancers was probably extremely limited. Intelligence doesn't grant you skills or knowledge, it merely grants you the ability to attain them faster -- within certain constraints. Intelligence is often limited to specific domains in any given person, leaving them average or below-average outside of those domains. Learning won't change that, nor will personal choice. It's a hard-wired limitation and that's what you've got.
It is very unlikely Jobs' form of intelligence would function well in the biological sciences. Biology isn't modular or feature-driven. Pathways are long, complex and highly interactive. The kind of amazing hyper-focus that Jobs was capable of is exactly the wrong way to deal with billion-variable hybrid systems like the human body. It's ideal for engineering, where you can black-box everything you don't want to consider right now, but it's useless where there are no boxes to draw.
It wasn't only that his "arrogance overrode his intelligence." He admitted he was also batshit afraid of being drugged unconscious so that men he didn't know could cut him open and slice parts of his body out.
The arrogance was certainly a factor (in disregarding sound advice and in convincing himself, probably falling victim to his own trademark ability to sway perceptions) but he was fundamentally a man who was acting out of fear and making bad decisions as a result.
Re:In America you can be cured of most diseases by tragedy · 2012-02-03 07:28 · Score: 2

Jobs might have been well-educated and intelligent, but he was fundamentally a salesperson. A very high-powered one. They tend to be crazy. It's usually a fairly specific kind of crazy, but crazy nonetheless. Basically, their success leads them to believe that they can accomplish anything just by force of will and personality. These people are heavily into all that self-actualization motivational stuff. They also really _believe_ in it due to their own success. Confirmation bias leads them to believe that they will always succeed where others have failed.
Re:In America you can be cured of most diseases by crmarvin42 · 2012-02-06 09:51 · Score: 1

According to his biography, the doctors and nurses in the OR when he had his tumor biopsied the first time started crying when they realized that he had the much rarer, and treatable form of pancreatic cancer.

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Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Re:In America you can be cured of most diseases by crmarvin42 · 2012-02-06 09:55 · Score: 1

According to his biography he simply denied to himself that he had cancer. He was afraid of surgery, a long time believer in the use of fad diets to reach enlightenment, cure disease and render one's body odor nonexistent, and had a near super-human ability to ignore reality (RDF). He tried a fad diet, championed by a renowned snake-oil salesman of an alternative physician, and wasted valuable time. In the end though, he aggressively pursued what ever science-based treatments were available to him and openly regretted his delay.

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Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde

Correlation to human greed by assemblerex · 2012-02-03 04:13 · Score: 0, Troll

I'd love to see if there's a relation to the amount of Alzheimer's vs the amount of animal byproducts we feed to food animals.
We already know brain wasting in the UK was tied to feeding cattle infected animal remains rendered into feed.

Re:Correlation to human greed by u38cg · 2012-02-03 04:19 · Score: 2

Actually, we don't. For all the scaremongering at the time, there is no real evidence tying BSE transmission through animal derived feedstuffs to vCJD.

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[FUCK BETA]
Re:Correlation to human greed by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 04:22 · Score: 0

As far as I recall, it's already quite well established that a massive percentage of patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's actually have Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Re:Correlation to human greed by Sockatume · 2012-02-03 04:31 · Score: 1

That seems a little unlikely given how distinct they are in progression and histology.

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No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Re:Correlation to human greed by medv4380 · 2012-02-03 05:49 · Score: 2

Given that Alzheimer's was diagnosed over a hundred years ago I'd doubt that anything that we've been doing recently would actually be the source of the problem. Alzheimer's has probably been around for a very long time just was identified as old people going senile. It could easily be a Prion as you're implying with comparing it to Mad Cow disease, and it could be that something we are doing is spreading it. However, it could easily be just a genetic defect that's causing the protein to be folded incorrectly, and wasn't considered an issue until the human lifespan hit a point that the defect kicks in. A genetic defect is at least fixable. I don't know of any real treatments for Prions other then things that sound "promising", but have yet to prove themselves.
Re:Correlation to human greed by jd · 2012-02-03 06:22 · Score: 1

Well, yes there is. The pathway from scrapie to BSE to vCJD is well-established.

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It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Re:Correlation to human greed by u38cg · 2012-02-06 01:07 · Score: 1

No, it isn't. The protein is similar and has similar infectivity characteristics, but no-one has proved that you get vCJD from eating meat from cattle that had BSE. The old story: correlation is not causation. There is still nothing to prove there was not a common cause.

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[FUCK BETA]

Where is the peer review? by djdanlib · 2012-02-03 04:13 · Score: 1, Interesting

I'm always suspicious of these 'breakthroughs' when they are introduced via mass media. Somebody thought up a possible cause always gets interpreted to mean that there must be a cure on the way and that's a sexy story to sell the papers, so... Where are the links to peer-reviewed scientific journals? This is Slashdot, a link to the NY Times isn't much more than a start.

Re:Where is the peer review? by Sockatume · 2012-02-03 04:28 · Score: 1

The links to the peer-reviewed papers are in the fucking article.

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No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?

Folding@Home by blind+biker · 2012-02-03 04:13 · Score: 5, Informative

I talked with the researchers involved with Folding@Home, and they told me that indeed, processing power is at least partly used to research Tau protein misfolding.

So, if you want to do something good for your future (since there is a good chance you'll be hit by Alzheimer's if you live long enough), I suggest contributing your CPU and graphics cards cycles to Folding@Home.

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"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.

Re:Folding@Home by virgnarus · 2012-02-03 04:42 · Score: 1

I talked with the researchers involved with Folding@Home, and they told me that indeed, processing power is at least partly used to research Tau protein misfolding.
So, if you want to do something good for your future (since there is a good chance you'll be hit by Alzheimer's if you live long enough), I suggest contributing your CPU and graphics cards cycles to Folding@Home.
Can I instead use my graphics cards to mine bitcoins to fund said project?
Re:Folding@Home by Enleth · 2012-02-03 11:56 · Score: 1

Wouldn't they get more if you turned off your computer and donated the money you'd otherwise have to spend on the electricity bill?

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This is Slashdot. Common sense is futile. You will be modded down.

Columbia's Taub Institute by John+Bokma · 2012-02-03 04:15 · Score: 1

So he beat House after all? Anyway, very good news. I saw my grandmother slowly fall to pieces and "it's an awful way to go" doesn't even come close to describe it.

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Perl Programmer for hire

PLoS One Link by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 04:19 · Score: 4, Informative

Below is a link for the PLoS One article...

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0031302;jsessionid=4EA9D1FCBCCF4E5C7B1B9A5FE3266C3E

Nice work by medv4380 · 2012-02-03 04:23 · Score: 4, Interesting

Nice that they've isolated it down to a single protein causing the problem. From what I gathered from the article the protein is supposed to provide the insulation between neural networks as you get older. Shouldn't be long then before they have it isolated down to the gene sequence that causes the protein to go rogue in the first place. Assuming that it's genetic and not some other kind of Prion.

Car Analogy From TFA by Flipstylee · 2012-02-03 04:26 · Score: 1

"Looking at the brains of people who have died of the disease, Dr. Duff said, is like looking at a wrecked car and trying to figure out the accident’s cause. Faulty brakes? Broken struts?

I think this is a good analogy.

Sure, it all starts well and good... by mj1856 · 2012-02-03 04:26 · Score: 4, Funny

but next thing you know you're in a helicopter, shooting monkeys off the Golden Gate Bridge with a machine gun.

Re:Sure, it all starts well and good... by geekoid · 2012-02-03 04:39 · Score: 1

so.. win-win!

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The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Re:Sure, it all starts well and good... by goldspider · 2012-02-03 04:46 · Score: 2

Or as I call it, "Saturday".

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"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy

Farma: Profit == Exciting News by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 04:28 · Score: 0

It's exciting for them because it opens a whole new opportunity for PROFITTING from new drugs that 'block spread of Tau'. The industry, meanwhile, makes 2 dollars for treating side effects of 1 dollar drugs.

Re:Farma: Profit == Exciting News by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 04:59 · Score: 0

Unless they find that the optimal "drug" for combatting the bad Tau proteins is an industrial compound that's cheaply manufactured by the ton then you won't here about it.

Can you read? by pavon · 2012-02-03 04:33 · Score: 1

The link to the peer reviewed paper is in the NYT article.

Re:Can you read? by djdanlib · 2012-02-03 06:38 · Score: 1

Indeed. They appear to have edited the article to add the hyperlink since I posted that.
Re:Can you read? by GLMDesigns · 2012-02-04 04:03 · Score: 1

It's frustrating when they do that.

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If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond

Do you remember... by alex67500 · 2012-02-03 04:43 · Score: 2

Does anybody remember Alzheimer's first name?

No? That's how it starts...

Re:Do you remember... by brianerst · 2012-02-11 04:53 · Score: 1

Alois. Why I knew that off the top of my head, I can't remember...

Absolutely. Every self-respecting cannible knows by bdwoolman · 2012-02-03 04:51 · Score: 1

the dangers posed by Kuru

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"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy

Ceasar IS home.......... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 05:00 · Score: 0

they testing this on chimps?

At last Zombies can now be explained by wintercolby · 2012-02-03 05:04 · Score: 1

They don't eat brains because they're zombies, they are zombies because they eat brains from Alzheimer's casualties.

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Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know. --Aldous Huxley

In other words, Alzhimers is a prion disease by MickLinux · 2012-02-03 05:12 · Score: 2, Interesting

In other words, Alzhimer's is a prion disease, much like Kuru. Also, I suspect, much like Multiple Sclerosis.

The difference is that Kuru is a disease gotten by eating human flesh, and even tigers that eat it will be able to get it from humans.

Scrappie comes from sheep. Mad cow comes from cows. Even deer have their own prion disease. If I had to guess what MS comes from, I'd guess pig meat.

So what's Alzhimer's come from? I suspect it comes from sausage. More specifically, from rats. Anyhow, that's where I'd start looking.

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Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's

Re:In other words, Alzhimers is a prion disease by Nadaka · 2012-02-03 05:41 · Score: 2

You have a lot of unsubstantiated suspicions.
The thing about prions is that they are not just a transmissible disease. They can spontaneously be generated by environmental factors deforming an existing protein.
They also do not say that this malformed tau protein is capable of corrupting normal protein, which would be required before it could be a transmissible prion.
Re:In other words, Alzhimers is a prion disease by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 07:17 · Score: 0

Current evidence suggests Multiple Sclerosis is an auto-immune disorder. Not a prion disease.

NB by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 05:23 · Score: 0

I finished a biochem degree in 2003, and the fact/theory that misfolded tau causes Alzheimer's has been know about since at least 2002. Mutations in tau are associated with misfolding and when people talk about "plaques" of misfolded protein in Alzheimer's they're talking about tau. These guys think they've worked something out about the development of the disease - that it seems to spread from a single start point, and thus misfolding is a rare event and misfolded protein seems to spread to other cells from where it starts, like an infection. They're not claiming to have discovered tau as the cause. That was already known.

tau and prions are related by clydoz · 2012-02-03 05:51 · Score: 2

The relationship of Tau to prions (cause of mad cow disease) is discussed here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3015202/?tool=pubmed "Tau, prions and A: the triad of neurodegeneration."

Transfusion? by JigJag · 2012-02-03 05:56 · Score: 1

I saw a documentary yesterday about all types of surgeries done without transfusion (open-heart, liver cancel excision, full-knee prosthetic). Even trauma situation was discussed and how it costs less and it's often safer and healthier to do things bloodlessly.
Now, I wonder if this tau protein is transmissible via transfusion and if so whether it passes the blood-brain barrier. If so, it is probably another reason to seek alternatives.

JigJag

--
"The hallmark of humanity is the ability to move beyond sensory inputs" - Mary Helen Immordino-Yang

Hooray! by Greyfox · 2012-02-03 06:17 · Score: 1

Now quick, fix it, before Terry Pratchett has to kill himself.

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I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

Perfect by ThatsNotPudding · 2012-02-03 06:38 · Score: 1

The possibility of a very welcome (and no doubt staggeringly pricey) maintenance drug. But not a cure. Never a cure. No. Not yours.

Glass half empty guy says: by frank_adrian314159 · 2012-02-03 06:45 · Score: 0

Hooray! So now I'll be able to be completely lucid and aware as I die from some other painful, debilitating disease.

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That is all.

What are these 'cures' of which you speak? by HiggsBison · 2012-02-03 07:22 · Score: 1

While I agree that the pharmaceutical businesses is a complete disaster area in terms of cures-per-dollar ...

The pharmaceutical industry is not about prevention or cure, they are all about perpetual treatment.

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My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.

No, lets test the hypothesis by medv4380 · 2012-02-03 07:49 · Score: 1

This particular study was done using Mice so the hypothesis of alzheimer's might be a Prion could be tested without the ethical concern of giving healthy human being alzheimers. Though the Rats of Nimh might object. It would be fairly important to narrow down the search from a rogue Prion you could ingest to a rogue protein your genes instructed to be made.

World Cancer Day Feb 4 by witherstaff · 2012-02-03 07:50 · Score: 1

You're right about the stages, also the type of cancer. I know at the local relay for life events I'll hear 'Oh my cancer's been in remission for years' and then the next person will tell you how a family member was gone in months. I also hear a lot of stories at the chemo ward. My mother's been fighting ovarian for over 3 years, but it had recently spread to her liver. Actually her doctors told her in December to get her affairs in order as there was nothing they could do, probably last 2-3 months. Also she was on 175 mg morphine for pain management so no quality of life to speak of. Luckily Cleveland Clinic decided she was a good candidate for surgery and she's just about back on her feet. Almost entirely pain free. No hard prognosis with cancer, but her quality of life is better and the family has time.

What I learned? Regional hospitals may be alright but on anything important screw them, get in one of the top 10 hospitals as there really is a world of difference.

As an aside World Cancer Day is Feb 4th

Stuff like this by Nyder · 2012-02-03 07:52 · Score: 1

is why I don't plan on living past my 60's.

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Be seeing you...

Question the priorities by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 10:42 · Score: 0

Annual budget for the TSA: $8.1 billion. Annual federal government spending on Alzheimer's research: $640 million. If our politicians can't see anything wrong here we really need new ones.

Will this make a difference? by Frans+Faase · 2012-02-03 11:19 · Score: 1

The Tau protein has been known to be involved with Alzheimer's Disease for a long time. For a long time the accumlation of beta amyloid has been thought as the main driving mechanism of Alzheimer's Disease. The Tau-hypothesis has been around for a long time as well. I get the impression that the majority of the research on Alzheimer's Disease has been on beta-amyloid, including finding medication that is targeting this protein. And large sums of money has been invested in this research. I don't know if this finding will suddenly change the focus.of research in Alzheimer's Disease. Actually, I am afraid that it will not make much difference, and that the tau-hypothesis will be considered as an alternative for a long time.

Aluminum was also discovered as a cause years ago. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 11:28 · Score: 0

The synopsic collection of microscopic particles of aluminum, the same used in baking flour and possibly the same that some scientists and government officials use in the heavy chemtrail spraying for cloud generation by other seemingly anonymous corporations in conjunction with HAARP activities around the planet that ends up in ground water and everywhere else in the environment and by the way is not required to be tested for by this poster's water company should be considered significantly suspect by some concerned people somewhere on this planet, look it up.. I'm not your mother.

Awesome: Cusp of a cure. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 13:49 · Score: 0

Understandable, and if we substitute Polio for Alzheimers we could be talking about a victim of a bygone era just before penicillin was discovered.

Open source publishing in medicine by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 15:05 · Score: 0

The real wonder here is that is it published in PLoS. In contrast to the for-profit journal which only allow access to research by paying 30 bucks to see if it is worth reading, PLoS is free. As a scientist, I won't publish something unless it is going to be widely read. I wish more people followed this example.

Nutrition can make a difference... by Paul+Fernhout · 2012-02-04 02:21 · Score: 1

http://www.changemakers.com/discussions/discussion-493#comment-38823

Look into vitamin D, eating more vegetables, getting enough iodine, periodic fasting, omega 3s, and so on.

Regular exercise to keep lymph circulating and mind-body coordination (Yoga, Tai Chi) can help, too.

And social and psychological aspects make a difference too (especially in supporting good nutrition, adequate exercise, time for learning, and limiting bad stress).

The seeds of cancer are usually set decades before the problem emerges. The body is always getting cancerous cells; the issue is does the immune system fight it off. And the more reserve capacity a brain has, the longer mental decay takes to become significant and life-altering.

Sorry to hear about your father, but maybe these can help you avoid the same fate.

See also, not that it applies directly, but might be suggestive:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/new-study-finds-that-vitamin-d-may-help-in-treatment-of-pediatric-bone-cancer/
"Vitamin D can cause cancerous bone cells to turn into normal bone cells, according to research by scientists at the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC). The discovery may lead to new treatments for pediatric bone cancer, the scientists say. Recent studies have shown that vitamin D may be helpful in treating cancer of the breast, prostate and colon by inhibiting the growth of malignant cells. KUMC scientists built on that foundation, using tests to show that vitamin D produces a similar response in osteosarcoma -- a type of malignant bone tumor that mainly affects children and adolescents."

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A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.

Virwhut by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-04 10:35 · Score: 0

Wait...did ANYone actually think Alzheimers was a VIRUS?! I mean, anyone who had spent even five minutes just reading up on the basics?!

The idea that Alzheimers is about protein misfolding has GOT to be about two years old - that's how long I've been teaching it in my gen bio class....

Maybe it is the "soundbite" that is making this story sound odd.

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Alzheimer's Transmission Pathway Discovered

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