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59 Comments
- mmaine, on 02/08/2009, -0/+63Fantastic news!
Alzheimer's is such a terrible disease, I hope they find a cure soon. - Garofoli, on 02/08/2009, -0/+46Sadly this didn't come earlier, I lost my grandfather to this disease.
- goldfenix, on 02/09/2009, -0/+21Put me on the list of people who sincerely hopes that this works. Alzheimer's is one of the worst diseases ever, both for the person and for the person's family. From personal experience, I can tell you that one aspect that nobody talks about is the sheer cost of the disease. There are few diseases that can literally cause a person to simply cost thousands of dollars per month, and yet the person can continue living for upwards of 10 years.
And the worst part is that the person isn't even themselves anymore. They're like a shallow husk of a former loved one. Anything that can prevent that has all the support I can muster behind it. - WafflePirate, on 02/08/2009, -1/+20I welcome any new cure. But the thought of brain injections hurts my brain.
- WordsnCollision, on 02/08/2009, -4/+20Reversing Alzheimer's? Good. Injecting things into my brain?: Not so much.
- eramos, on 02/09/2009, -0/+13Coincidentally, they have a brain injection that fixes that right up
- AnonBuffalo, on 02/09/2009, -3/+15Digg- Curing AIDS, Cancer, Alzheimer's, etc. on a weekly basis.
- ashkan101, on 02/09/2009, -1/+12Yes, how dare they try to cure a degenerative BRAIN disease with injections directly to the BRAIN. Thank god there are people like you with such amazing grasps of these concepts.
- u8myfoood, on 02/09/2009, -0/+8I know how you feel, I lost my grandmother to this disease too. It's a terrible experience for both the person who has it and the family... she was so hard to take care of before she died, forgetting that she had eaten hours earlier and then complaining for more food. =T
- myFriendDerrik, on 02/09/2009, -0/+8The brain actually has no pain receptors. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=200802 ...
- ThinkIcouldburn, on 02/09/2009, -0/+7I'm sorry, but I hate seeing stories like this. If it has worked on all those animals, shouldn't we be testing it on people with Alzheimer's? That way it's either something that helps or something that does not. It's frustrating reading stories about maybe cures. I've read them about cancer, and my father just died from cancer. I've read a bunch about Alzheimer's while my grandfather is stuck in bed knowing how to say two words and forgetting how to eat.
It's news worthy when it works on people. I just don't care when Alzheimer's is reversed in Mice. - EricPeters, on 02/09/2009, -0/+7My grandfather is going through this right now. It truly is terrible. When my family and I visited over Christmas, he responded to my "Hey Grandpa, how are you doing?" with "Hi... who are you again?" I wanted to cry.
- disraeligears54, on 02/09/2009, -4/+11This is a personal ***** you from everyone, including myself, who has lost somebody to the disease.
- silentsteps, on 02/09/2009, -0/+6As unorthodox as this treatment sounds, it sounds more hopeful then anything in the past.
- realunderdog, on 02/09/2009, -1/+7And then you'll love Big Brother.
- LucasKane, on 02/09/2009, -0/+5Work, dammit
- Xeniv, on 02/09/2009, -0/+5i love how all i always see articles about these medical breakthroughs but they won't be available to the public until who knows how long of a testing and approval period....it's a shame really.
- itsradBrad, on 02/09/2009, -0/+5I wish you guys and your families the best. I just lost my grandfather to the disease this last year. This may sound effed up but he always secretly told me I was his favorite grandchild.
The year before he died he stopped remembering who I was. It's so hard to look at you best fishing buddy and see nothing but empty eyes staring back.
It's a shame this happens. Again, I'm sorry for you guys that are dealing with this. Best wishes. - silentsteps, on 02/09/2009, -0/+4bad taste.
- twiztidsinz, on 02/09/2009, -0/+4I don't think (s)he's saying that the treatment is bad...
Just that sticking needles in your brain is not a good thing. - Philbert, on 02/09/2009, -0/+4Hmm... A friend of mine does neurological research specifically in Alzheimer's. I'll have to ask if she's heard about this.
- drkeclpse, on 02/09/2009, -0/+4Thinklcouldburn is correct. As someone who works in an Alzheimer's lab, I can say that the gene that causes Alzheimer's in mice isn't identical to the one in humans; many drugs that show promise in animal trials fail to accomplish the same results in humans. If you know someone who is genetically disposed to develop Alzhiemer's, these sorts of articles can raise their hope, and that's great they don't have anything to lose. I just hate to see people who will have to watch them progress through this disease constantly have their hopes raised and dashed based on early trial data.
- method7670, on 02/09/2009, -0/+4Time for human testing to see if it actually works.
A close friend of mine lost her grandmother to this disease, so I would love to see a positive out of this. - WoollyMittens, on 02/09/2009, -1/+5Since Alzheimer patients are usually old and retired and thus of limited financial interest to our corporate benefactors, don't hold your breath waiting for any medicines.
- Groovydoo, on 02/09/2009, -0/+3I think Professor Feynman said it takes 30 years for a technical breakthrough to finally reach the public. For instance Henry Francis Compton Crick discovers DNA in the 1953 but we didn't start mapping the genome till the 1990. President Nixon's war on Cancer spurred the biotech revolution but we had to wait till the late 1990's for anything really useful.
- caffeinejunkie, on 02/09/2009, -0/+3Ok, my grandmother passed away from Alzheimer's so I was really interested in reading the actual study that this article was based off of. I was highly disappointed to find out that the study actually came out in 2007. This isn't some sort of brand new piece of science.
- theOguy, on 02/09/2009, -0/+3I hope there's a cure for everything when I get it.
- cschoeps, on 02/09/2009, -0/+3It's hard to go through, eventually getting to the point where they aren't the same person. My grandpa passed away this past summer after having it very bad, but he wasn't the same person that he used to be. On a bright note, towards the end he started getting some of his old, joking style back. He even slapped the nurse in the hospital on the ass : ).
Also, whenever you gave him a greeting card, he got to enjoy it multiple times. He'd look at it and say, "Oh, a card for me?" and proceed to read and put down the card. Five minutes later, he'd enjoy the card all over again.
A terrible disease, it really helps you appreciate the times when the glimpses of their old self come back. - TheMachine1, on 02/09/2009, -0/+3Medicare will pay for it. If it keeps people out of expensive nursing homes a few years it will be very cost effective for the government.
- UnfunkyMunky, on 02/09/2009, -2/+4That is amazing news. Now, can someone please inform Terry Pratchett? I (very selfishly) want more Discworld books!
- WhoaABlueCar, on 02/09/2009, -1/+3didnt we already learn this from deep blue sea
- bitterbug, on 02/10/2009, -0/+2Protein and enzyme reactions are absolutely essential to our existence. The wrong protein in the wrong place can wreak havoc... eg. prion disease.
Put the right one in the right place, and the effects can be astonishing. - inactive, on 02/09/2009, -1/+3Hey it's great hearing the Animal Kingdom has another breakthrough, this time Alzheimer's, cant wait for the Human race stuff they'll eventually get around to trying. Bobo is gonna be okay, but your suffering granddad better hang on another 10 years and pray the drug is retrospective.Way to get naive people's hope's up again, science.
- Serphyas, on 02/09/2009, -1/+3I laughed, not gonna lie.
- yfph, on 02/09/2009, -0/+2Hmmm, well, there are still neurofibrillary tangles composed of hyperphosphorylated tau to deal with....
- kim69, on 02/09/2009, -0/+2The senior author of this study is a clinician and is known for injecting neurotrophic factors (like the one used in this study) into the brains of humans, with promising effects. This approach will likely be tried in small numbers of patients.
The reason that many of the things we find that make AD better in mice do not make it to the clinic is because it is prohibitively expensive. Usually it costs $20-40k per patient for a 6 month AD trial. Do the maths, but you usually need to raise 10-20 million to try the treatments out! - TheMachine1, on 02/09/2009, -0/+2It should have said "A protein".
- scarz99, on 02/09/2009, -0/+2Wow I hope by the time I'm old and probably stricken with Alzheimer's there will be a definite cure.
And what a funny name for a drug, "Rember" haha. - kim69, on 02/09/2009, -0/+2It is identical! The mice used in this study overexpress human APP with the swedish mutation, while the primates used also show 100% homology with human APP, plus the other secretases. Hence the genes used to create transgenic mice are identical to those that cause the familial form of the human disease.
Its the sporadic form of the disease that we cannot effectively model yet.
I would say that clinical trials fail because we are unable to target the correct populations. By a time a patient has symptoms they have fairly extensive pathology and neuronal loss, which is very hard to overcome. Drugs need to be given to people before they develop the disease, and as we dont have effective biomarkers this is not possible yet! - stuffradio, on 02/09/2009, -0/+1Digg- Getting comments like the one above on a weekly basis.
- goldfenix, on 02/09/2009, -1/+2What I mean to say is that with Alzheimer's, we're not only keeping a person alive (which is good in theory!) we're keeping a person alive who isn't even the person they were before.
There's a huge difference, in my mind, between keeping an AIDS patient alive (a person who still is the person they were) and an Alzheimer's patient (who is, at best, a very vague shell of themselves)
I say this as a person who right now is preparing all the legal documentation to get my grandmother onto Medicaid. Literally in the past 3 years she has gone from having about 100,000 dollars to having nothing. And having spent a lot of time with her, I can tell you that there's nothing left of her personality. Not a shred. And right now I'm about to witness her becoming the cost of random taxpayers.
The whole thing just sucks, it's such a horrible disease. - realunderdog, on 02/09/2009, -2/+3Stop getting flu shots or any vaccine.
Smoke moderate amounts of cannabis.....THC has been show to protect i. e. increase the lifespan of neurons. - iamthearm, on 02/09/2009, -1/+2BS. Buried for being another one of those stories we'll see on Digg for years to come.
- Serphyas, on 02/09/2009, -1/+2That stopped being funny a while ago.
- mmoran43, on 04/13/2009, -0/+1Interesting article. I wonder if it's related to this company at all http://www.prevagen.com they seem to use a jellyfish protein to help overall brain health. Found this press release on their website as well: http://www.prevagen.com/files/10%2015%202008%20Jel ...
- drkeclpse, on 02/09/2009, -0/+1The "natural" mouse APP gene isn't identical to the one in humans, or so my understanding goes. I didn't read the actual scientific article, so I must've missed the part where they discussed the engineering of the mouse with the Swedish Familial Mutation. I'd go further to say drugs that only target this particular mutation aren't very useful at the moment. Last I looked, less than 1% of Alzheimer's patients express this particular mutation.
I'll agree with your last paragraph though. Most damage is done even before the characteristic plaques form in the brain. Recent studies have shown that the it is the soluble form of the miss-folded protein rather than the solid plaques that are toxic. I wouldn't share this with your loved ones who may have the diseases, as it would indicate damage beings occurring far earlier in life than most people believe. - drkeclpse, on 02/09/2009, -0/+1Hmm...
"...have shown that it is the soluble..."
"...ones who may have the disease..."
"...indicate damage begins..."
It's really going to be embarrassing when I missed something else too. Also, recent means within the last couple of years, before someone jumps on me. - bitterbug, on 02/10/2009, -0/+1It will go faster if they discover that it makes your penis harder or longer too. (Viagra, fastest approval of any drug to market)
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