Fantastic Youtube Presentation about Alzheimer's Disease and Research

[Kim]

Below is a link to a Youtube video of a presentation by Rudolph Tanzi about Alzheimer’s Disease. He makes the presentation to a group associated with science and meditation, so it is a bit unconventional. The presentation is rather long at 44 minutes, but it is very informative and entertaining. He presents cutting edge information that gives me hope.

Here is his Wikipedia entry:

Dr. Rudolph Tanzi is the Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard University, and Director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Tanzi has been investigating the genetics of neurological disease since the 1980s when he participated in the first study that to use genetic markers to find a disease gene (Huntington's disease). Dr. Tanzi co-discovered the three familial early-onset Alzheimer's disease (FAD) genes and several other neurological disease genes including that responsible for Wilson’s disease. As the leader of the Cure Alzheimer's Fund Alzheimer’s Genome Project, Dr. Tanzi has carried out multiple genome wide association studies of thousands of Alzheimer’s families leading to the identification of novel AD candidate genes, including CD33 and the first two rare mutations causing late-onset AD in the ADAM10 gene. His research on the role of zinc and copper in AD has led recently to successful clinical trials at Prana Biotechnology. He is also working gamma secretase modulators (together with Dr. Steve Wagner, UCSD) for the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's.

There is a song at the end of the presentation that I chose to skip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzgjlKDmSeI

[KatieS]

Kim, thanks for posting this presentation. Here's his prevention list:
1. Physical exercise
2. Mediterranean diet
3. Ashwagandna & Cat's Claw- he takes one of each daily
4. Learning new things, fun games don't help, need to develop more synapses
5. Effects of meditation to increase telomerase & decrease inflammation. He has a study soon to be released of the "very potent" effects of mediation.
6. Sleep-to assure you have the delta slow wave sleep when the brain contracts and clears amyloid, you have to get over 6 hours of sleep

His analysis begins with the sticky amyloid outside the nerve cells, then tangles spread like fire, all resulting in inflammation. Since the confirmation that amyloid does cause tangles (in his discovery of the brain cells in a dish), he is lobbying for insurance companies to cover amyloid imaging. Eventually, we will treat the amyloid imaging to bring the amyloid down, "like a statin for high cholesterol". A positive image occurs "15 years before symptoms".

Other experimental therapies included vibrational frequency with nano bits to blast amyloid. He is in the Bredesen camp of multiple therapies including "shaping" your genes by breaking bad habits and avoiding negative self-talk of "I am ___".

[Fc1345linville]

Here is an article from today's Wall Street Journal co-authored by Tanzi on the subject of "Misplaced Hopes for Curing Alzheimer's":

http://www.wsj.com/articles/misplaced-h ... 1433804970

[Julie G]

The WSJ article is needlessly provocative, IMO. Why pit lifestyle factors against Big Pharma? For those of us at the highest risk, we are looking to any and all options to extend our useful lives.

Diet and lifestyle are not irrelevant: Exercise and sleep can lower risk, and foods that are bad for the heart are also bad for the brain. But the biggest lifestyle factor is age. Stubbornly, insidiously, Alzheimer’s becomes more threatening with every year that we get older. Nearly half of those over 85 have it. [Emphasis Mine]

Exactly. We would be fools not to control what we can. By applying diet/lifestyle strategies, we might be well enough to benefit from the "room full of Ph.D.s soberly sharing painstakingly sequenced genomes, assayed enzymes, and isolated signaling molecules so that safe, effective new drugs can be created and tested" who shall sweep in on white horses and save us all.

To suggest that there is NO science behind the strategies used by Dr. Bredesen or in the FINGER Trial is just wrong. To suggest it may not be enough is probably accurate.

[Matisse]

The article link is behind a Wall Street Journal subscription wall. Can anyone find another link or copy? Thanks.

[Julie G]

Matisse, you can type the headline directly in your browser to bypass the paywall: "Misplaced Hope for Curing Alzheimer's." I'd love to hear your thoughts...

[Russ]

The WSJ article is needlessly provocative, IMO. Why pit lifestyle factors against Big Pharma? For those of us at the highest risk, we are looking to any and all options to extend our useful lives.

Diet and lifestyle are not irrelevant: Exercise and sleep can lower risk, and foods that are bad for the heart are also bad for the brain. But the biggest lifestyle factor is age. Stubbornly, insidiously, Alzheimer’s becomes more threatening with every year that we get older. Nearly half of those over 85 have it. [Emphasis Mine]

Exactly. We would be fools not to control what we can. By applying diet/lifestyle strategies, we might be well enough to benefit from the "room full of Ph.D.s soberly sharing painstakingly sequenced genomes, assayed enzymes, and isolated signaling molecules so that safe, effective new drugs can be created and tested" who shall sweep in on white horses and save us all.

To suggest that there is NO science behind the strategies used by Dr. Bredesen or in the FINGER Trial is just wrong. To suggest it may not be enough is probably accurate.

I know some of you are likely frustrated at such wildly differing opinions. As some of you know, this world of the human dynamics of revolutionary innovation is where I live everyday and have for a long time. This same type of response plays out everyday in every industry and cause. Making sense of it is a complex thing, but I would only advise that people do not get caught up in choosing sides between opposing views.

My experience is that there is always a bit of truth in every view and you just need to dig to what's behind the comments and consider every assertion a potential question worth possibly answering via experiment. The question is most often not whether one comment or another is a-priori correct, but which experiments to do based on costs, risks and potential rewards. Of course, some experiments are simply way out of reach in doability by non-practicing scientists, and that's why the network of scientists Julie and team have put together is so profoundly important. As experiments unfold, it then becomes very wise to focus increased attention on those experimenters with a track record of actual success (e.g. Bredesen, Gundry), but even then never believe any pioneer to hold the full truth. The smartest scientists will know this themselves... Richard Feynman famously articulating that the key to scientific progress is being wrong....
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/gue ... ing-wrong/
...something that some scientists seem to forget sometimes.

[bentkat]

[quote][/quote] Richard Feynman famously articulating that the key to scientific progress is being wrong....
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/gue ... ing-wrong/
...something that some scientists seem to forget sometimes.

I agree with Feynman.

Today, I don 't fault the scientists but do find journalism slowing progress with what & how journalists report studies and experiments.

[Harrison]

Great comments Russ. Dr. Tanzi is dogmatically driven by the amyloid beta hypothesis more so than many and is at the polar extreme from Dr. Mahley in terms of Alzheimer's hypotheses. Some merging of the two views will most likely be closer to the truth. Dogma is a two-edged sword, as it drives some truly innovative research (I am reminded of the Margaret Mead quote about a small group of individuals changing the world), but inability to let go can hold back the field (my own personal view of what the amyloid hypothesis has done to AD research).

[Julie G]

Apologies for hijacking the thread, Kim. I still have to go back and review the link I know Dr. Tanzi is a huge proponent of meditation- nice.

This WSJ article seems to have struck a chord among our members and others. A typical Facebook post for ApoE4.Info gets between 100-300 views. This one almost hit a thousand.

I'm personally not wedded to any ONE approach, but rather to anything that will extend my useful life. I think the WSJ commentary rubbed me the wrong way because it dismissed diet & lifestyle strategies as not having a scientific basis. Also, bearing in mind that Pharma still hasn't developed the "magic pill;" what else are we, those at the highest risk of developing the disease, supposed to do? I see members here every day (myself included) who've experienced dramatic improvements in cognition and overall health based upon those strategies. IMO, simply dismissing them negates patient welfare.

I loved your post, Russ. I DO search for the nuggets of "truth" in every strategy I encounter. I learn from each of my falls down those rabbit holes. I learn the most, however, when I'm proven wrong. I greatly admire researchers/clinicians who change their advice based upon new evidence...which brings me to Harrison's point. It does seem like the amyloid hypothesis camp would be re-thinking things by now. Of course, they'll point to Biogen as proof of efficacy. I guess Dr. Reiman's (Banner) work in Columbia and his upcoming amyloid prevention trial focused exclusively on E4 homozygotes will help further flesh that out...or NOT. We only have to wait 9 years for results...sigh.

My guess is that it's ultimately going to end up being a combination of Pharma and diet & lifestyle interventions that may offer us the BEST hope. I wish both camps would put patients first and not play scientific one-upmanship at our expense.