Spinal-Fluid Test Confirmed To Predict Alzheimer's 138
omnibit writes "The New York Times reports that researchers have found a spinal-fluid test can be 100 percent accurate in identifying patients with significant memory loss who are on their way to developing Alzheimer's disease. The new study included more than 300 patients in their seventies, 114 with normal memories, 200 with memory problems, and 102 with Alzheimer's disease. Their spinal fluid was analyzed for amyloid beta, which forms plaques in the brain, and for tau, another protein that accumulates in dead and dying nerve cells in the brain. Nearly every person with Alzheimer's had the characteristic spinal fluid protein levels."
Re:100% Accurate, Nearly All of the Time! (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, not only that, but also it says that many people without Alzheimer's turned out positive too ... so they assumed those are going to develop Alzheimer's.
It produces false negatives, and it might be producing false-positives, but we won't know until 10 or 20 years later. But it still is 100% accurate. Nice math there. This trend of early publishing non peer reviewed material while making extraordinary claims, only to never hear from it again is starting to get really old.
Re:Thank goodness: (Score:4, Interesting)
The next time he had to go in was because of a disc problem and they essentially injected his spine with meat tenderizer to dissolve the ruptured disk away. He said compared to the spinal tap that didn't hurt at all (except for the nurse yanking his boxers off without first checking for protrusions - yikes!).
Re:BAPtists and Tauists? (Score:3, Interesting)
Does the test for both show that there's still no consensus on the cause, or has one been established as the cause and the other an effect?
I think the fact that both are used merely shows that there's consensus that both are strong markers of the disease. Actually proving cause and effect is going to require better animal models, better culture systems to replicate the disease in a dish, or people willing to sacrifice themselves. I heard a seminar about 3 years ago by a "tauist," who was arguing that if you artificially expressed tau in mouse brains, their neurons started acting like early stages of alzheimers, but the mice never developed plaques. He suggested plaques might be a symptom that only comes up in human brains, or after several years longer than mice live, or some more complicated reasons, but he really didn't know. I haven't heard any research from a BAPtist, so I don't know the other side of the story. I'm guessing there haven't been any definitive answers since then.
The answer could be entirely academic anyway, this one causes that other one but both are necessary for the actual disease, so a treatment for the dependent step might be all you need, or the answer could be that both are required together, or that either one is sufficient to cause the other one.
Re:Does knowing early help? (Score:5, Interesting)
So I forced him to be active; when he tries to tell me something, and can't think of the word, I just wait for him to spit it out, or tell him to explain it a different way. Get him active, help him see that life can be good even though he doesn't remember quite as well. I treat him like a human and make him connect to me like a human. No withdrawing into that shell just because you can't remember well. I took him to see giant trees and waves and stuff. Giant trees and waves always make you feel alive.
So now he is happier, got over his anger streak, and he doesn't worry if he can't remember everything (it doesn't matter if you can find a way to work around it).
From someone that lost his mother to Alzheimer's (Score:4, Interesting)
If you have ever had the misfortune of having a relative with Alzheimer disease, you know they are nothing like the person you loved and cherished. Everything from forgetfulness, to wanderings where you search the streets for them, to the extreme mood swings where they get violent. Its a terrible experience for both you and the people that have this disease.
If you are diagnosed with this disease in advance, and there are no cures? How do you tell your family and friends? What are you going to think about the pain you know that you may be putting them in?
Knowing how my mother became with this disease, if I find out that I have it and there are no cures. I don't want to put my friends and family through the same experience. I would rather drive my car into a wall at 120 miles an hour.
Just my perception, sorry.
Re:Does knowing early help? (Score:3, Interesting)
Shit, all my grandfathers children are treating him like a borderline invalid now, and he's still in good shape. I took him out cutting wood for a few weeks winter before last. Sure he can't do as much as he used to, but not being treated like an invalid and doing something useful for a few weeks... the poor guy looked better for months afterwards than he had for years previously.
Seriously though, a man that can still safely swing a chain saw plus haul the logs he cut(all but the biggest, some of which I couldn't even move without further segmenting) is far from an invalid. I personally think this is a very widespread flaw in the current 30-60 generation in regards to their parents. I guess a lot of the 40-60 crowd led cushier lives and already can't do a lot of what their parents still can at 60-80+. I know thats a lot of the reason my grandfathers children treat him like an invalid. They basically look at it and go "Shit, I can't even begin to do that, theres no way its even safe for him to try!" Meanwhile he'd run circles around them.
I'm currently looking for a good part time job for him(something suitable, similar to what he did all his life, but of course without too much back breaking labour, he is in his 70's) just to get his spirits up. People don't understand it, my own generation included, but sometimes people are happier when they're WORKING. Not everyone digs the "Get as much money saved as I can so I can be as lazy as possible for as long as possible" lifestyle. My grandfather retired at 65 because the family basically forced him to. He wouldn't have if it was his choice.
Obviously his situation isn't going to be the situation of every other older person out there. If you've got one of those age related bone diseases or develop heart problems... things like that, then obviously for your own health you can't do what you've always done. Otherwise... people should just be more supportive and let folks do whatever the hell they want to do.
One other pet peeve of mine is that people complain that "Oh but that 65 year old man/woman doesn't need to work, they're taking a job away from a young person just starting out!". Well let me be the first one to say, if you're 15-25 and you can't out work a 65 year old its time to put down the god damn cheetos and get off the couch.
Sorry for going a bit far off topic, but back on topic: My grandfather is in a high risk group for developing a particularly nasty brand of alzheimers, and one of the most effective methods of keeping it at bay is exercise, so it really hits home for me when people mention this sort of thing, and pisses me off to no extent at the rest of my family.
Re:Thank goodness: (Score:3, Interesting)
I've never had meat tenderiser shot up my back, but I've had two lumbar punctures. The first one wasn't too bad, the second one was almighty awful.
The only thing I underwent that hurt more was after a fight (I was doing street photography and was attacked by a bunch of youth), I had a corneal abrasion on my left eye. My understanding of it is that there was a small hole, gap, or something, on the outer layer of my eye, against which my eyelid rests. I had this small gap dead centre in front of my iris (or whatever you look through is called).
You may not be aware of this, but your eyes move constantly, and having a little gap in what used to be the smooth surface of your eye means that with every tiny movement of your eye, there's friction. I didn't notice anything after the fight, however, the next morning, I woke up around 5AM and was effectively blind (I couldn't open the other eye, as that would cause my other eye to try and open too). For the next two days, I was blind, not because my eyes were unable to see, but because the pain was unbearable. At the hospital, I was given a topical anaesthetic, which removed any trace of pain. That nurse became my new best friend. Though, what it didn't remove was the massive photophobia I was suffering from.
Photophobia is a very disturbing phenomenon. We aren't used to having our eyes not adapt to the available light. No matter where I went, everything was overexposed. I couldn't read anything written on white paper (too bright), they had to switch off all the lights in the exam room for me to get the eyesight test done.
Luckily, just over a week after the incident any discomfort was gone, I still had problems focusing (which lasted for about a month), and dry eyes (fake eyedrops are a godsend), and photophobia remained for about 3 months, in a lesser extent than previously. And using sunglasses when reading your email doesn't make you look cool, it just makes you look stupid.
Being an avid photographer, I was shell-shocked that my eyesight was so fragile, and that even though the pain withdrew relatively quickly, being blind for a couple of days really made me very, very humble towards people who have live with that handicap on a daily basis.
Makes you think, of all the senses we have (hearing, vision, smell, touch, and some might even argue that memory is a sense as well), which one would you choose to lose if you had to? We take a lot of things for granted, our body, and our most basic senses that make up the experience of self. If you couldn't remember the experiences that made you 'you', would you still be 'you'? Would you still be yourself if you couldn't see, or hear?
Re:Does knowing early help? (Score:3, Interesting)