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Comment by olliej | Hacker News Reader

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.

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"None of those drugs have impacted Alzheimers symptoms in any way."

I think in some cases it actually made the symptoms worse.

You may be correct, but there is another model whereby the damage to the nerve cells is done by the build up of the plaque. Removing the plaque does not necessarily repair the damage.

I picture it as a clog in a pipe. The clog is large and strong enough to break the wall of the pipe. You can remove the clog, but you've still got a break in the pipe that was not repaired.

I have heard people claim that Alzheimers is type 3 diabetes. Is there any truth in that?

Anyone who confidently answers this question is lying.

I'll confidently answer.

We don't know.

So you do know :)

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.

Spirochetes can also form biofilms. I wonder if ticks that carry Lyme disease can cause Alzheimers.

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.

If you’re saying Lyme disease, at some frequency causes alzheimers, then it should be observable in different incidences in alzheimers between the US and countries that, at least now, are considered free of it such as Australia. To my knowledge there is no difference in incidence

Plus this.

https://www.j-alz.com/content/study-disproves-link-between-l...

Aha. Next you can give the classic "this statement is a lie".

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.

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!

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.

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