Comment by sublinear
13 hours ago
I'm not saying I'm the best informed on this topic, but I thought the root cause has been known for a long time now as degraded endocrine and cardiovascular function.
That's also why Alzheimer's can take so long to develop. It's just one aspect that we've chosen to focus on because it's more clearly noticeable, but it cannot easily be treated in isolation from everything else. If it was, it would regress quickly without fixing the root causes.
We truly do not know the root cause. There are plenty of folks with "degraded" endocrine, cardiovascular, and both systems. Most of them do not develop Alzheimer's.
How many of them have their lymphatic and glymphatic systems effectively halted by parking their bodies in a chair or being bedridden?
Even the most unwell person (in the US) is still dragging themselves to the store and work, on average.
Simple, brief movement that we often relieve the elderly of is the pump that actions the lymphatic system.
Being older brings its own additions to the table.
There is no single root cause. Many scientists have preferred to ignore this fact and that has been a serious problem. Everyone likes a simple story. Age-related diseases are not simple stories.