EARLY INTERVENTION: The incidence of Alzheimer's disease continues to rise as the population ages. New techniques to track the disease before symptoms arise may allow for testing of drugs before it's too late.
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In Brief
- The incidence of Alzheimer’s disease continues to rise as the population ages, but effective treatments are lacking.
- Some new drugs may have failed because they were tried too late.
- New techniques to track the disease before symptoms arise may allow testing of drugs at a stage when they may be more effective.
More In This Article
In his magical-realist masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude, Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez takes the reader to the mythical jungle village of Macondo, where, in one oft-recounted scene, residents suffer from a disease that causes them to lose all memory. The malady erases “the name and notion of things and finally the identity of people.” The symptoms persist until a traveling gypsy turns up with a drink “of a gentle color” that returns them to health.
In a 21st-century parallel to the townspeople of Macondo, a few hundred residents from Medellín, Colombia, and nearby coffee-growing areas may get a chance to assist in the search for something akin to a real-life version of the gypsy’s concoction. Medellín and its environs are home to the world’s largest contingent of individuals with a hereditary form of Alzheimer’s disease. Members of 25 extended families, with 5,000 members, develop early-onset Alzheimer’s, usually before the age of 50, if they harbor an aberrant version of a particular gene.
This article was originally published with the title Alzheimer's: Forestalling the Darkness.
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2 Comments
Add CommentDear Professor Stix,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am translating this article for the Spanish Edition of Scientific American and there is an expression that, I guess, has double sense but I do not get it.
Could you please help me to translate the term:
"hot tub" physician
by explaining me what does it exactly mean?
Sincerely,
Juan Manuel Gonzalez
An excellent article. But I was disappointed that he didn't mention the dramatic effects of nicotinic acid (niacinamide) on Alzheimer's in rats in a study by Dr. Kim Green and others at UCal-Irvine. Tau buildup was reduced by 60% and microtubules were protected. This version of vitamin B3 may be one answer to the debilitation of Alzheimer's, although it doesn't affect amyloid-beta buildup. Mice that were treated performed later as if they'd never had Alzheimer's.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was also disappointed in Mr. Stix's reference to cholesterol as a causative of heart disease. Even mainstream medicine has disavowed that canard. Total cholesteral is not a factor in heart disease, although some of its components (LDL, VDLD, Lp(a) most assuredly are, along with inflammation in the arteries. Reducing total cholesterol excessively, as statins can do, is far more damaging than having a relatively high reading, and can cause problems in the brain.