Comment by pedalpete
2 days ago
We work in neurostimulation and sleep, and collaborate with Alzheimer's researchers.
The Amyloid hypothesis is not disproven, it is still ONE of the primary candidates for AD.
The problem with any Alzheimer's research is that the disease is still not well understood. It is likely that multiple diseases are being bundled in as a single disease. The tests for AD, are somewhat rudimentary. Beginning with psychological and neurological tests, the blood work to rule out other conditions, followed by a PET scan to look for brain atrophy, and CSF measures for amyloid and tau levels.
It seems almost like they're basically ruling out any disease we can actually measure for and then if it isn't one of those, it's AD.
Does this mean the Amyloid hypothesis is wrong? Unlikely. Is it incomplete? Absolutely!
But articles shouting that all the research should be thrown out are not helpful .
The AD community know that they don't understand the disease, and though therapeutics have been mostly focused on amyloid and tau, research into how the disease works continues.
> But articles shouting that all the research should be thrown out are not helpful .
Good thing OP isn't one, then. In fact it makes a pretty similar point: all the non-amyloid research also should not have been thrown out. Or rather, killed before it got that far; you can decide whether that's equivalent or worse.
It seems involves some kind of metabolic disturbance, is there any explanation for this? https://academic.oup.com/metallomics/article/9/8/1106/601364...
Could the Amyloid/tau hypothesis be a cart before the horse situation? It is my understanding that the current hypothesis is that the buildup of these proteins causes Alzheimer's. Could it be that Alzheimer's causes these proteins to build up?
It could be. That's why we need more research. Well funded and not vilified.