We May Finally Know What Causes Alzheimer's -- and How To Stop It (newscientist.com)

We may finally have found the long-elusive cause of Alzheimer's disease: Porphyromonas gingivalis, the key bacteria in chronic gum disease. New Scientist: That's bad, as gum disease affects around a third of all people. But the good news is that a drug that blocks the main toxins of P. gingivalis is entering major clinical trials this year, and research published Wednesday shows it might stop and even reverse Alzheimer's. There could even be a vaccine. Alzheimer's is one of the biggest mysteries in medicine. As populations have aged, dementia has skyrocketed to become the fifth biggest cause of death worldwide. Alzheimer's constitutes some 70 per cent of these cases and yet, we don't know what causes it.

Comments

Re:Is the bacteria the cause or symptom?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

That study was heavily flawed (as you note). Just to clarify a bit, it was performed on post-mortem brain samples. The aluminum found in Alzheimer's brains came from the solution they had been preserved in. (The Alzheimer's brains had been previously identified, set aside and preserved, while the non-Alzheimer's brains were sampled, uh, fresh.)

Cue mass panic over soda cans, cooking ware, etc.

But it was an easy flaw to believe in, as aluminum in the blood DOES cause dementia, as was discovered when the early dialysis machines were made with aluminum containers for the water bath.
This led to "dialysis dementia syndrome", which limited the time a person with kidney failure could be kept alive on dialysis.

Once this was figured out (early 1980s) the containers were changed, the dialysate treated to remove aluminum (and the use of aluminum-containing antacids as phosphate-binding agents reduced or discontinued.) Then people could be kept alive and reasonably healthy for long enough on dialysis to make it possible to wait for a transplatable kidney donation.