I have seen again in the press, a new theory that has been circulating about the cause of Alzheimer's Disease. The good news is that if one knows what causes a disease, finding a cure could be the next step (however many years down the road.)
With incorrect understandings it is like trying to cure indigestion with a cold compress to the head. The problem has nothing to do with the attempted cure so its pretty obvious that a cold compress to the head will not cure indigestion. The headache might get better but the indigestion will not. Same with Alzheimer's.
The controversial new theory is that the brain is not destroyed by sticky plaques but by free-floating clumps of protein. The plaques that surround the brain cells of people with Alzheimer's might in fact be trying to protect against the toxic clumps. M.D. Sam Gandy's metaphor for the new thinking is that just as an oyster creates a pearl around a grain of sand to protest itself, plaques may serve as traps for the oligomers that are attacking the brain.
Further implications, if this new theory is correct, have to do with the current drug treatments which attempt to destroy the plaques leaving the toxic proteins behind. This could make the situation worse.
Rudolph Tanzi, director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General HOspital says "The best drugs are yet to come." Here's hoping!
(Idea for this blog taken from AARP Bulletin, September 2010.)
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