[HN Gopher] Alzheimer's amyloid hypothesis cabal thwarted progre...
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Alzheimer's amyloid hypothesis cabal thwarted progress toward a
cure for decades
Author : nabla9
Score : 111 points
Date : 2022-06-21 20:05 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.statnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.statnews.com)
| jyounker wrote:
| This is why we need more funding for biomedical research. Some
| proportion of those additional funds need to be distributed _on a
| consistent basis_ to long-shot or unexplored hypothesis research.
|
| The issue is that politicians have for decades described this
| sort of research as "government waste".
| m348e912 wrote:
| "Trust the science" has been a often drummed mantra the past
| several years but it's important to consider science is subject
| to bias, group think, influence, and sometimes corruption.
| (although the latter doesn't seem to apply here)
|
| I applaud the researchers who have spoke out against the
| consensus at their own professional risk, it's a shame they have
| to take on such burden.
| sydthrowaway wrote:
| Now take your logic and apply it to COVID-19.
| reidjs wrote:
| Was there a lot of controversy among the scientific community
| ? The experts seemed to all say pretty much the same thing -
| masks indoors, social distance, get vaccinated, etc.
| codefreeordie wrote:
| Indeed. What would happen to the career of a scientist who
| even tried to do something else?
|
| (many careers were ended. In some cases, states threatened
| to pull licenses or even imprison researchers for even
| considering alternatives)
| aceon48 wrote:
| Not true. Some doctors tried to prescribe off label
| treatments and were prohibited, fired, etc (for example
| ivermectin or hydroxy
| mft_ wrote:
| The same treatments that have been shown to offer little
| benefit, or even be detrimental?
| TaupeRanger wrote:
| Say specifically what your criticisms are. Such a generalized
| statement sounds like the beginning of a conspiracy rant.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| The fact that researchers can and _will_ speak out against
| consensus is exactly why I do "trust science." I don't trust
| consensus theories to be accurate at every instant in time,
| particularly in areas that have received more limited scrutiny
| (or where experiments are expensive and time consuming), but I
| generally do believe that it's the very best process the human
| race has ever devised for arriving at truth.
| Angostura wrote:
| Science is a _method_ , where free-flowing ideas are subject to
| the cut and thrust of debate and review.
|
| In general, where a set of ideas are protected, _despite_
| contrary, high-quality, evidence, this is the opposite of
| 'trusting the science'.
| wussboy wrote:
| These are not science problems, these are human problems and
| the breadth of human endeavor is crippled by them. What is
| unique about science is that it acknowledges these problems and
| has mechanisms to address them.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| > as Aisen put it last week on the sidelines of the Aspen Ideas
| Festival, "I don't think I'm part of a cabal."
|
| That's nice. No one _thinks_ they 're doing evil.
|
| >A frequent reason top journals declined to publish her papers,
| as they did those of other amyloid skeptics, was previous
| rejections. As one peer reviewer wrote about a funding proposal
| Itzhaki submitted in 2010, "very few [of your] papers have
| appeared in the most highly regarded journals."
|
| I don't think "cabal" is too harsh a word to use here. "Other
| journals have rejected you, so we will, too."
|
| > One of the four reviewers gave her scores of "poor" (3 on a
| 10-point scale) on key criteria, arguing that because "there is
| no conclusive evidence for a major role of this pathogen in
| Alzheimer's disease," the research "will not have an impact on
| advancing the field of dementia research." A second reviewer
| called the role of pathogens in Alzheimer's "a fringe topic."
| Although one gave Itzhaki scores of 10 ("outstanding"), the two
| dismissive reviews sank her chances.
|
| If the amyloid hypothesis had made stunning progress, that
| approach might have made sense. If not... "the jury is still out,
| so let's hear your ideas" would be the real Science.
| mturmon wrote:
| FTA, contradicting the headline (emphasis mine):
|
| > Despite being described as a "cabal," _the amyloid camp was
| neither organized nor nefarious_. Those who championed the
| amyloid hypothesis truly believed it, and thought that focusing
| money and attention on it rather than competing ideas was the
| surest way to an effective drug.
|
| This discrepancy indicates part of the problem: the investigators
| narrowing the search for causes honestly believe in what they're
| doing.
|
| The NIH review panelists really believe they're safeguarding the
| NIH budget, and the Pharma execs really believe they're wisely
| allocating their R&D budget.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Probably unrelated, but I've realized from dealing with certain
| people in the criminal justice system, that almost nobody
| believes they are evil or doing bad things. They just want to
| do what they think is right, believe that what they are doing
| is common and acceptable, think often justice takes strange
| forms, or otherwise can justify what they do till the day they
| die. The worse someone is, the more strongly they can justify
| what they do.
| 300bps wrote:
| Not unrelated at all.
|
| We judge ourselves by our intentions.
|
| We judge others by their actions.
|
| This leads to people with evil actions judging themselves as
| good. "I didn't want to do it. They gave me no choice."
| [deleted]
| nextos wrote:
| My experience is that many prominent professors behave in a
| monopolistic way. That is, they try to sabotage theses, grant
| applications and publications in review that go against their
| own research.
|
| Lots of different areas, particularly in medicine, have slowed
| down or stagnated as a consequence of this. For example, the
| connection between immunity and cancer was obvious in the 1990s
| but it took many uphill battles to get funding for
| immunotherapies. Proponents of somatic mutations as a cause of
| cancer have typically taken most of the research funds and
| blocked alternative ideas.
|
| Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, T1D, etc. have pretty similar
| stories.
|
| Luckily less politically driven funding agencies and,
| ultimately, VCs are introducing some efficiency back into the
| system.
| forum_ghost wrote:
| ...but VC and private equity funding for biotech has been
| available in the 90s too?
| nextos wrote:
| It was an order of magnitude more difficult to raise VC
| money _for biotech_ back then.
|
| There are articles around discussing how in case of
| Alzheimer's it was impossible to get VC funding for immune
| ideas, even though they already had interesting evidence.
| The same cabal was also blocking them.
| bryan0 wrote:
| needs a (2019). I'm curious what type of progress in the field
| has been made since then.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Related:
|
| Derek Lowe: Had Enough, Eh? Come Back and Take What's Coming to
| You! https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/had-enough-eh
|
| >It is hard to even begin to estimate the amount of time, effort,
| and money that has been spent on this idea. And this is just the
| antibodies! There are plenty of other whacks that have been taken
| at the amyloid hypothesis (secretase enzymes and more), and none
| of them have ever worked. Keep in mind that there are plenty of
| preclinical efforts over the past thirty years that never even
| saw the light of day (I was on some of those myself), and the
| reason you never heard about any of them is because they didn't
| work, either. Nothing has worked. Not once. The amyloid
| hypothesis has been targeted again and again and again from
| different directions with different drug candidates, and never,
| ever even once has it shown signs of truly helping Alzheimer's
| patients. I very much include Biogen's Aduhelm in that
| assessment. So I ask again: how long are we going to keep doing
| this?
| irthomasthomas wrote:
| Type 3 diabetes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_3_diabetes
| jleyank wrote:
| Pharma has sunk billions into the amyloid hypothesis, fielding
| multiple candidates to no avail. Good money thrown after bad.
| Huge market need, has to go back to working out a new animal
| model. Self-delusion at it's best, or blind optimism with "this
| time, it's going to be different". Lucy and Charlie Brown snd the
| bloody football.
| ed wrote:
| > The NIH, for instance, is funding the 130-patient study of
| whether an antiviral can help Alzheimer's patients; Columbia's
| Dr. Davangere Devanand, who is leading it, expects results in
| three years.
|
| Which would be around now (the article is from 2019).
| Unfortunately results aren't available and aren't expected until
| December 2023. The study finished recruiting 2 months ago.
|
| More information on this specific trial:
| https://beta.clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT03282916?patient=NC...
| ncmncm wrote:
| I'm taking my valacyclovir periodically, regardless. It might
| be useless. But it keeps the cold sores down.
| codefreeordie wrote:
| Hmm, I wonder what other high-visibility areas of research suffer
| from similar problems
| crawshaw wrote:
| Committees, like all decision-making entities, are sure to make
| mistakes. This is a good argument for multiple independent
| funding sources for research.
|
| To some extent these exist, like HHMI. This article does not go
| into detail about why those institutions did not fund different
| research, which would be interesting to explore.
| moneycantbuy wrote:
| Plausible alternative causes include herpes virus, diabetes,
| fungal infection, and/or sleep disorders.
| smegsicle wrote:
| also aluminum in some form
| iosystem wrote:
| My pet hypothesis is that Alzheimer's is the effect of fungi on
| the body. I think depending upon genetics we have a certain
| resistance and as we age it weakens. Possibly early onset
| Alzheimer's could be any factor of exposure levels throughout
| one's life and or from genetics possibly weakening the resistance
| of the body towards fungi. While the type of dementia that most
| elderly develop is possibly the outcome of long-haul exposure to
| fungi. I've already read some research between fungi and
| Alzheimer's but not all. I'm just someone who has/had family
| members with the illness and I'm curious about it. edit: whoever
| downvotes me, please reply because I'm very curious on if you're
| downvoting for any specific reason from research that makes you
| highly doubt my pet hypothesis.
| forum_ghost wrote:
| what made you think it's fungi exposure?
| iosystem wrote:
| I've been reading research on Alzheimer's from the start of
| when I became informed about my family members having it.
| There's multiple approaches that research is going over of
| course. Some is on fungi like what my comment asserts. If you
| do a quick google search you can read about it in great
| detail.
| redbar0n wrote:
| Even science is not precluded from dogmatic thinking.
|
| Dogmas are everywhere, not merely within religion.
|
| In science it's merely framed as <<paradigms>>.
|
| This story details how it looks.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I would bet money that alzheimers will eventually be found to be
| primarily caused by either a 50+year incubation period
| transmissible disease or by pollution.
|
| As soon as we get good data as to the cause, I think we'll be
| able to eliminate it pretty quickly. For example if we find that
| it is spread by contaminated milk, we will make tests for the
| disease on milk and soon get rid of it.
| rnk wrote:
| It's really hard to find causes and later cures for things that
| come slowly over lives that take many years to hit you.
| olliej wrote:
| The amyloid hypothesis is such utter bullshit, at this point
| there have been empirically effective anti-amyloid plaque drugs.
| That is drugs that effectively and measurably reduce amyloid
| plaque build up. None of those drugs have impacted Alzheimers
| symptoms in any way.
|
| If you have a hypothesis of the cause of a disease, and you
| create drugs that effectively treat it, and those drugs don't
| effect the disease symptoms or progression you need to accept the
| hypothesis is wrong.
| orangepurple wrote:
| I have heard people claim that Alzheimers is type 3 diabetes.
| Is there any truth in that?
| m348e912 wrote:
| I have read that metals like aluminum, copper, zinc, and iron
| can play a factor in the onset of Alzheimer's, but that might
| be related to the amyloid plaque theory.
|
| I regularly take zinc and iron supplements and have used
| aluminum based deodorant, so I hope there's no relationship!
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Anyone who confidently answers this question is lying.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I'll confidently answer.
|
| We don't know.
| borodi wrote:
| So you do know :)
| fswd wrote:
| I will take a really risky guess on the premise that
| there are many different types of causes for Alzheimer's.
| But one type of them might be caused by parasites. And
| it's either the body's response or an intended affect of
| the parasite to enclose the parasite in a type of plague.
| Kind of like biofilm... or both. Reducing the plague or
| biofilm could allow the immune system to respond to it by
| "seeing" it... in some cases. It might also allow the
| parasite to grow faster if the immune system isn't
| successful or can't see it. Based on my guess, a
| treatment plan would involve biofilm/plague "breakers",
| fasting or behavior changes to reduce and eliminate
| parasite's life cycle, and anti-parasite medicines that
| can reach the blood brain barrier. Again, I think there
| are different types of causes for Alzheimer and this is
| just one cause.
| orangepurple wrote:
| Spirochetes can also form biofilms. I wonder if ticks
| that carry Lyme disease can cause Alzheimers.
| lief79 wrote:
| You would be able to look for correlations with other
| tick borne diseases. Are there geographic correlations
| with Alzheimer's.
|
| Seems like low lying fruit that someone would have looked
| into.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| They just mean that there is some insulin dysfunction with
| Alzheimer's. They don't really know how important it is both
| from a symptom or cause standpoint.
| nunb wrote:
| It would be interesting to see the correlation in families
| with a history of diabetes, and to correlate it to T2
| diabetes or "metabolic syndrome". I have anecdata about this,
| but I wonder if any studies are being done in family-groups,
| such as identical twins etc.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "None of those drugs have impacted Alzheimers symptoms in any
| way."
|
| I think in some cases it actually made the symptoms worse.
| anonygler wrote:
| One might wonder if a similar thing had been happening with low
| carb / keto diet research. Being adopted as a fad diet has
| overwhelmed the constant scorn from the nutrition community.
| skissane wrote:
| Lynn Waterhouse, Eric London and Christopher Gillberg have a
| similar opinion of ASD: see their 2017 letter to the editors of
| _Autism Research_ , "The ASD diagnosis has blocked the discovery
| of valid biological variation in neurodevelopmental social
| impairment"
|
| https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.1832
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