Alzheimer's and Amyloid 5: The Big Mistake
About this episode
This episode discusses a trial of a novel Alzheimer's vaccine that cleared amyloid but did not halt dementia progression, challenging the notion that amyloid plaques cause Alzheimer's.
In part 2 of this series I described a trial in which researchers developed a novel vaccine for Alzheimer’s patients, designed to rid the brain of amyloid. The vaccine worked, clearing amyloid—but their dementia progressed, unabated. This was, in other words, a full debunking of any notion that amyloid plaques are the cause of Alzheimer’s and that removing them can cure the disease. Interestingly, in a 2008 follow-up report on the study, a curious turn of phrase caught my eye: Do you see it? Did you feel the tectonic shift? In a single sentence the authors both tout their success with “disease modification,” and concede that removing amyloid didn’t help people. In other words, the ‘disease’ was not memory loss or crippling cognitive decline. It was amyloid. Which they ‘modified’. The operation was a success—but the patient died. RT is fully reader-supported. To keep doing it, I need help. Please consider paying for a subscription. Lest you believe this kind of language is isolated or antique, this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association , the worlds most circulated medical journal, includes an article about Alzheimer’s, with a review of the history of amyloid…
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- Tamiflu, and the Fatal Mistake of Doing Something
- Is Moderate Alcohol Consumption Dangerous?
- Alzheimer's and Amyloid, A Summary
- Alzheimer's and Amyloid 4: The Long Mistake
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