Proposing a Microbial Cause of Alzheimer's Disease, Again

The biochemistry of the brain is enormously complex and still poorly understood at the detail level. This is also true of the mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease. Treating Alzheimer's is, more or less, the unified banner under which the research community raises funds to map and catalog the brain. It is why so much funding pours into the study of this one condition in comparison to others. In the research mainstream it is expected that only with much greater understanding of neurobiology will effective therapies emerge. Since the molecular biology involved is so very complicated, there are many gaps into which new theories of disease progression can fit without much challenge. Building theories is a lot easier and cheaper than running studies, and so there will always tend to be more theorizing than construction of potential therapies. This is especially true when, as is the case today, the dominant paradigm of amyloid clearance has yet to produce results despite years of trials. Perhaps that indicates it is harder than expected, or perhaps it indicates that it is a wrong direction. Some of the more interesting alternative theories include the idea that amyloid clearance channels in tissues close to the brain fail with age for many of the same reasons that blood vessels accumulate damage in aging issues. This is a putative cause and possible fix for increasing amyloid levels. The Methuselah Foundation is funding a test of that theory, as such a test should be cheap and fairly ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs