We May Finally Know What Causes Alzheimer's -- and How To Stop It (newscientist.com) 208
We may finally have found the long-elusive cause of Alzheimer's disease: Porphyromonas gingivalis, the key bacteria in chronic gum disease. New Scientist: That's bad, as gum disease affects around a third of all people. But the good news is that a drug that blocks the main toxins of P. gingivalis is entering major clinical trials this year, and research published Wednesday shows it might stop and even reverse Alzheimer's. There could even be a vaccine. Alzheimer's is one of the biggest mysteries in medicine. As populations have aged, dementia has skyrocketed to become the fifth biggest cause of death worldwide. Alzheimer's constitutes some 70 per cent of these cases and yet, we don't know what causes it.
People, Just Floss (Score:5, Funny)
Re:People, Just Floss (Score:5, Funny)
Just floss people. And don't FORGET to floss. The more you floss, the less you will forget to floss. See how that works?
I'm really not much of a dancer though.
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Re:People, Just Floss (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe this will prompt changes to include dental coverage in with medical and not some half covered separate insurance with limited payout.
Diet is so important to your health, but getting damaged teeth fixed is expensive and mostly out of pocket. So you end up eating pre-processed crap that is bad for your health.
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Maybe this will prompt changes to include dental coverage in with medical and not some half covered separate insurance with limited payout.
I think the difference in insurance companies is just the result of the difference in practitioners. Back when the whole idea was new, companies going around to convince doctors to accept insurance happened to be different from companies focusing on dentists.
I don't think there's any evil conspiracy here, and I'm convinced the limited payout limits the number of crowns your dentist will one day insist you need each year. Funny thing how judgement calls work when profit is at hand.
You don't generally reali
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You don't generally realize how odd the whole situation is until you need dental surgery, and get deep into the confusion of what's covered by dental vs medical insurance.
So true. My wife is having surgery next month to remove a very belated wisdom tooth, and finding an oral surgeon that could bill it to our medical insurance was ridiculous. Ended up having to go with somewhere an hour away, even though there's a surgeon 10 minutes from our house.
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eating pre-processed crap that is bad for your health.
But I *LIKE* pre-processed crap. I consider it my pay-it-forward duty: With all of the preservatives, aspartame, Red Die #2, and all, I'm saving the mortician time and effort.
If FRUITCAKE or BACON can look good after 100 years, so can I -- alive or dead.
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Diet is so important to your health, but getting damaged teeth fixed is expensive and mostly out of pocket. So you end up eating pre-processed crap that is bad for your health.
Wait ... expensive dental care is the reason why people eat "pre-processed crap"?
I think you're missing a link or two in the chain of your logic there.
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I always assumed that crappy dental coverage was a byproduct of the fact that a lot of dental problems are preventable if you take care of your teeth.
I actually think they should provide better coverage for major dental work like crowns and root canals, but worse coverage for fillings.
Some of the problem may be shady dentists, too. I've run into dentists that are really big on pushing work that is pretty marginal in terms of necessity, and it seems like there's a lot of effort to push expensive products in
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And yet - there are almost no studies I can find where the statistics for Alzheimer's are directly correlative to dental health - literally it's death rate is low in low-health countries only because they die of other things first, but the incidence when that's factored out is the same.
Even between developed countries with insane dental habits versus those more lax (e.g. Europe etc. it's not neccessarily normal to floss every single day, especially if there's not something stuck), Alzheimer's prevalence is
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So like nobody I know in the US flosses regularly. Well, my dentist and his hygienist claim to. Some people are prone to gum disease, some are not. I almost never floss... never had a gum problem in my many decades of life. Hoping I'm staying in the 2/3 of the world who don't get gum disease. If you get it though, fuck me, go to the dentist, floss... rinse with garlic, eat cat litter, whatever the hell fixes it... because not only is alzheimer's a terrible way to get knocked down, you don't want gum disease
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Yes, and just because gum disease CAN cause Alzheimer's (in mice) doesn't mean it is the main cause in humans. (I don't think this study is even that strong.) There is a good chance that Alzheimer's is like cancer -- there may be several different causes that all manifest in the same kind of failure in the brain.
On flossing... I have always thought that, unless you actually have gum disease, the main benefit is so that the dental hygienist has less to do when they clean the plaque off of your teeth. I
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That's bad, as gum disease affects around a third of all people. But the good news is that a drug that blocks the main toxins of P. gingivalis is entering major clinical trials this year,
Just floss people. And don't FORGET to floss. The more you floss, the less you will forget to floss. See how that works?
No, you missed the important part of the story. It's very important that you solve this problem with a drug which is entering major clinical trials this year! Otherwise, how will the poor starving yacht builders get work?
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That is what I came here to say. Floss your teeth.
No. Bad advice. Get a Waterpik. Waterpiks are more effective than string flossing [nih.gov] at reducing plaque.
Waterpiks are also faster and easier to use, and people are more likely to use them consistently.
Add a jigger of fluoride mouthwash to the water, for even better results.
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Jigger? Could I get that converted into Football fields please?
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Jigger? Could I get that converted into Football fields please?
I have always used the term informally to mean more than a spoonful but less than a cup. But according to Google, "jigger" actually has a precise definition of 1.5 fluid ounces, or 44.36 ml. It is mostly used when mixing alcoholic drinks, and the device for measuring out precisely one jigger is also called a "jigger".
A "football field" is an area, not a volume, so no conversion is possible. But the Rose Bowl has a volume of 20,000,000 cubic feet, which is 12,766,753,247 jiggers.
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Well played sir.
Re:People, Just Floss (Score:5, Informative)
I thought the culprit was metal, aluminum specifically from pots, un-coated aluminum cans, etc.,
that found its way into the brain.
No. This was debunked long ago.
Myths about Alzheimers [alz.org]
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Headline is a LIE, article makes that clear (Score:5, Informative)
"Poor oral health is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. What’s not clear is whether gum disease causes the disorder or is merely a result"
EDITORS, EDIT !
Re:Headline is a LIE, article makes that clear (Score:4, Informative)
Did you read the *entire* article, or did you just stop when you got triggered?
"Some brain samples from people without Alzheimer’s also had P. gingivalis and protein accumulations, but at lower levels. We already know that amyloid and tau can accumulate in the brain for 10 to 20 years before Alzheimer’s symptoms begin. This, says Lynch, shows P. gingivalis is a cause of Alzheimer’s, not a result."
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Actually, the article specifically discusses indications why the gum disease is likely the cause and not just an effect.
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We only have teeth and gum problems because cereals became a staple of our diet only about 20,000 years ago. Not enough time to adapt to the new diet. Animals who eat their natural diets generally don't have the problems we do with our teeth.
This is exciting news (Score:2, Insightful)
until you factor in the inevitable greed variable from the Pharmaceutical Cartel.
You know as well as I what they're going to do.
They'll buy it up, crank the price to the point of sheer lunacy and charge folks something like $100,000+ for the treatment.
Even if we have cures for all the diseases that ever existed, until someone regulates the GD Pharmaceutical industry, it will only be an option for the super-rich.
( I'm not about to hand over my entire life's savings to be ' cured ' only to live in financial m
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They'll buy it up, crank the price to the point of sheer lunacy and charge folks something like $100,000+ for the treatment.
Think through what you would do if you owned the rights to it and wanted to maximize profits. Assume cost of production/distribution is fairly low, which is typically the case, and cost of development was ~$1B.
Choice 1: Price it sky high, say $100k. Sell a few thousand units (let's be really generous and say 100k) to people who (a) have the money and (b) are developing Alzheimer's or are worried they will. Revenue = ~$8-9B.
Choice 2: Make it affordable, say $100. Sell it to everyone as a prophylactic.
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$100/year over what, your entire adult life, but just in wealthy America? Or were you thinking you're going to push out USD $100/person one-time inoculation to 90% of Asia and most of Africa, too?
How do you make the antidote weak enough to require annual booster shots, and fragile enough to scare people into never skipping a dose, without also making it altogether
Asking the price reduces it by about 70% (Score:2)
If you're that bothered about the cost of medical care (which I can understand), a very simple way to reduce the cost is to call and *ask*.
My doctor said I needed an MRI and handed me the phone number of an MRI place. I called them and asked the price. It took them about five minutes to figure out it would cost $1,500. I then did a Google search for "Dallas MRI". The very first place listed in the Google search results did it for $450.
A year later my wife needed an MRI. She went to the pace that charges $45
The vast majority of medical care isn't emergency (Score:2)
Probably 99% of the time, you can choose whether to go to doctor A, or doctor B down the street. How many times have you been to a doctor? How many of those times had you been shot, or lost a limb?
Unlike car dealers, most medical places don't post their prices on their web site, but you can call and ask. Unless you've been shot, which is 0% of my family's medical costs. I'm kinda old, I've bought medical care for myself or family probably hundreds of times. So far, not even once have we had a life threateni
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I can't there isn't another ER in distance in the event of a real emergency, and the one here is terrible and not just high priced but they are that also. If I have a non-life threatening emergency I would get my wife to drive me 17 miles to the next town before I would go to the local ER.
My wife slipped on the ice while shopping in the next town they where able to see her do x-rays and confirm she didn't brake her ankle before I got there only 20 minutes away but they also found that she had previously bro
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No, I don't think that this will occur. What is more likely is that several major governments will buy the research instead and simply give away the treatment.
The reason I say this is that a person with Alzheimer's Disease costs money to look after. Even if the state isn't paying, then the person is still going to be a drag on the State since people who are looking after the dementia sufferer are not doing other things which would be producing tax revenue. Whichever way you slice it, demented people are a d
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There are pros and cons of this approach.
Pros:
-Increases the total amount of money invested in d
Re: This is exciting news (Score:2)
Another person who doesn't understand tax schedules or the difference between deductions and credits.
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Another clueless NPC who doesn't know how power really works.
They run the marginal tax rate up to ridiculous levels. Billionare calls up his friendly Congress critters and says, "Heh. Remember how much fun we had at my estate that you flew on my private jet to? Shouldn't my 2,000 acre estate be considered a "farm"? And shouldn't the government support "family farms" with tax deductions? Thank you."
Billionare somehow gets money back in April, instead of paying 9 of the 10 million he made that year in in
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But, the rest of the world can only do that because the $100,000 treatments in the US funded the development of this new treatment.
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There are 5 million people in the US with Alzheimer's. Using your logic, that means without half of a trillion dollars in revenue, such a drug would never be developed. That's just plain BS.
The real reason the prices would be high is that the drug companies use the same strategy that TV repair shops use to maximize revenue: No matter what the problem is or how trivial it is to fix, the price for a fix is always about half of the cost of a new TV.
Likewise, an Alzheimer's drug will likely be priced at about h
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Yep. ... and I'll purchase it if needed from one of those online pharmacies for pennies on the dollar.
Is the bacteria the cause or symptom? (Score:4, Insightful)
I remember twenty/thirty plus years ago when researchers found aluminum ions in the brains of Alzheimer's sufferers and there was the suggestion that cooking without aluminum pots and pans would prevent Alzheimer's. It seems that the aluminum ions were a symptom of Alzheimer's and not a cause - but on the plus side it gave steel cookware a good boost.
If it's true that this bacteria causes Alzheimer's, then it's good news as it should be fairly easy to eradicate.
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I remember twenty/thirty plus years ago when researchers found aluminum ions in the brains of Alzheimer's sufferers and there was the suggestion that cooking without aluminum pots and pans would prevent Alzheimer's. It seems that the aluminum ions were a symptom of Alzheimer's and not a cause - but on the plus side it gave steel cookware a good boost.
If it's true that this bacteria causes Alzheimer's, then it's good news as it should be fairly easy to eradicate.
Yeah... my father was convinced that Antiperspirant (aluminium based) was the cause of Alzheimer's and tried to convince everyone to stop wearing it. Thankfully for my nose,I don't think anyone took his advice.
Re:Is the bacteria the cause or symptom? (Score:5, Informative)
Same with the beta-amyloid plaques found in the brain of Alzheimer's sufferers. I worked on a monoclonal antibody treatment about 10 years ago that targeted these clots. The antibodies broke them up good but did not alleviate the condition or prevent the plaques from returning. They were symptomatic rather than causative.
Fact is, this is just another hypothesis among many. Other areas of interest are increased infection of herpes simplex (mouth sores) in the areas of the brain that are going bad. Antiviral trials are encouraging. Fungal infection has also been suggested since the disease is slow progressing like a fungal infection. Gum disease is just another hypothesis in a long line of em.
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OTOH, getting rid of gingivitis is itself desirable. So there's minimal downside.
Re:Is the bacteria the cause or symptom? (Score:4, Interesting)
That study was heavily flawed (as you note). Just to clarify a bit, it was performed on post-mortem brain samples. The aluminum found in Alzheimer's brains came from the solution they had been preserved in. (The Alzheimer's brains had been previously identified, set aside and preserved, while the non-Alzheimer's brains were sampled, uh, fresh.)
Cue mass panic over soda cans, cooking ware, etc.
But it was an easy flaw to believe in, as aluminum in the blood DOES cause dementia, as was discovered when the early dialysis machines were made with aluminum containers for the water bath.
This led to "dialysis dementia syndrome", which limited the time a person with kidney failure could be kept alive on dialysis.
Once this was figured out (early 1980s) the containers were changed, the dialysate treated to remove aluminum (and the use of aluminum-containing antacids as phosphate-binding agents reduced or discontinued.) Then people could be kept alive and reasonably healthy for long enough on dialysis to make it possible to wait for a transplatable kidney donation.
Best news in a long time (Score:2)
My grandma had it. My mother has it know, and it's getting worst.
While I do believe it's too late for her, and even if it's available I will never have anything near the amount of money this may require, there is hope for me and my 2 brothers in 20 years (statiscally, one of us should have it).
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I'm in the same boat as you. When my grandmother lived with my parents the last couple years of her life, it was really apparent how bad Alzheimer's really is. I really don't want to go through it, the last stage is a heart breaker.
I'm really hoping that this research is correct.
If true... (Score:4, Insightful)
"If borne out in clinical testing, COR388 could represent a wholly new approach to addressing a disease estimated to affect more than 5.4 million people in the United States." - Business Wire article [businesswire.com]
I really hope this turns out to be a breakthrough. But as the debunked Buzzfeed story showed us, something prefixed with "if true" isn't necessarily true.
This is like... (Score:3)
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sniff test (Score:3)
Oxygen causes Alzheimers (Score:2)
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I hear they also used bathrooms. Obviously we need to not let people use bathrooms, as it may cause AD.
Sugar causes plaque (Score:4, Insightful)
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Nope. Vascular dementia is different from Alzheimers. [nih.gov]
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I can assure you both statements are correct.
I can assure you the paper I linked says you are not correct.
It was an interesting lead in 2008, which is why they did the study that culminated in the 2009 paper I linked.
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Six months ago, herpes virus was a possible cause. (Score:2)
In other words, we have some therories (Score:2)
But, given that, theories need to be proven, and clinical trials fail all the time.
I remember this one trial that cause brain cells to leak. Not a good side effect.
More nonsense to sell pills (Score:3)
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Except you'll be reliving the late 2010s over and over and over.... Trump will your president forever.
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Was this funded by the government?
Maybe Coward could read the story and find out?
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I thought the president is already suffering from dementia. I am not trying to troll.
Of course you are trolling. Trump's mental status is not a question here, he's just fine in that regard. I fear some mistake Trump's lack of political sharpness as a mental problem, but it's really not.
Trump's problem is he's unskilled in political speak, which starts with controlling what comes out of your mouth and the substituting the proper focus group tested catch phrases instead. He just says what comes to mind, which is often something which is ill advised. He's learning to not do this, but his fi
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I disagree. There is a difference for someone spouting unpopular opinions, not taking any guff off of anybody, etc., and the uninformed, inco
Re:I dunno... (Score:4, Insightful)
Even when the things he says are obviously, demonstrably, and repeatedly incorrect? Don't you expect more from your leaders? I sure as hell do.
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Even when the things he says are obviously, demonstrably, and repeatedly incorrect? Don't you expect more from your leaders? I sure as hell do.
About nothing that really matters, while his statements are picked apart, made into sound bites and bandied about as if they are proof of things which are totally out of context.
I never said Trump isn't hard to listen to, but I do say that it takes a lot of critical thinking to understand what he means. You have to actually listen to him IN CONTEXT and stop trying to listen to the pundits who are spouting sound bites. Yea, he's said some stuff that wasn't true, he speaks off the cuff and sometimes is les
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The problem with calling it senile dementia is that it's not a recent development. It's not like Reagan, who was personable and vile, but lost his marbles during his term in office. Trump doesn't ever seem to have had any marbles to lose. He's been undependable and unreliable (as well as bigoted) as far back as is recorded. I suspect his grade school teachers would say he's improved "a little bit".
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President is irrelevant (Score:2, Funny)
One good thing the Trump Presidency has done is that it has shown people how powerless the Presidency really is. Trump hasnt been able to enact a single part of his Domestic agenda (The tax cuts were Ryan's agenda). The Bureaucracy and shadow state run the country not the elected govt.
People in the US like simplistic answers and have a Messiah complex so the office of the Presidency has been overhyped. Even Obama didnt really do anything which the Bureaucracy didn't want him to do.
At least Trump is making i
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Strangely, I was thinking the opposite. For a while I have been assuming that this will be the presidency that makes us rethink how much power a single man should be invested with. Levying tariffs against Canada for reasons of national defense? The threat of using the US army on american soil for a construction project? While the powers themselves might make sense in genuine emergencies, there doesn't seem to be any mechanism to prevent their misuse, and clearly the senate and congress have been unwilli
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I thought the president is already suffering from dementia.
I am not trying to troll.
But we have the nations oldest president, who seems to be getting much of its advice not from experts but from TV Political Pundents, who seems angry and bitter all the time, seems to be fearing everyone around him and with a lot of attitudes regression a lot like a child.
There is a good chance we are dealing with early onset Dementia with the president.
Just watch the British documentary (a 4-part series) "Trump: An American Dream". It is available on Netflix.
There are lots of interview clips over the years, and it is obvious that his speaking ability degraded between 2000 and 2010.
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I thought the president is already suffering from dementia.
This is interesting: https://www.statnews.com/2017/... [statnews.com]
YOU only hear it from pundits. (Score:2)
But we have the nations oldest president, who seems to be getting much of its advice not from experts but from TV Political Pund[i]ts, ...
There are plenty of experts who give the same advice. Trump (and those who don't self-select against it when browsing) can get it from experts as well.
But the media won't cover it. So the only place YOU hear it are from "pundits" (who also get it from experts and) who get enough air time to be noticed - and then flamed by mainstreamers when the advice runs counter to wh
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While I'm not dismissing multiple explanations for Trump's behavior, please check out the times that Trump fails to properly carry out basic tasks.
He's unable to properly load a pickup truck [youtube.com], for example. And
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Stop assuming that someone who criticizes Trump is a die hard Hillary supporter.
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I disagree. Even rich kids learn to use an umbrella and to deal respectfully and honorably with others.
That DJT didn't learn that is an important distinction.
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Political leaders are usually narcissists as are CEO's and executive officers of large successful companies. It kind of runs with the territory.
But the question really is if that's a problem for a president to be one? I don't think so.
I was raised by a narcissist, so I'm quite familiar with their personality traits. Where I don't envy the folks who work for them, they tend to burn folks up with their demands, they can be very effective managers and good leaders at times.
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That's why I wonder whether some histrionic traits come into play too. Normally they're way better at hiding that their egocentric assholes.
Why spelling matters (Score:2)
That is incomprehensible.
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In that case he fits right in with Washington, because Pelosi is acting like a 2 year too.
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She's acting like a statesman (stateswoman, actually).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/24/there-is-only-one-way-break-trumps-pathology-pelosi-has-found-it/ [washingtonpost.com]
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It's entirely plausible that he is suffering from some amount of dementia
Unlikely. Dementia is defined as a loss of cognitive functioning. But there is little evidence that Trump is getting worse. He has always been this way, even when he was in his 20s. You can't "lose" something you never had.
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I saw an article that noted that Trump's use of language had deteriorated substantially compared to when he was younger.
https://www.statnews.com/2017/... [statnews.com]
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It could be that he tries to be more approachable for his constituents.
About a 1/12 chance (Score:2)
Unlikely. Dementia is defined as a loss of cognitive functioning.
I'm well aware of that. And it's quite possible he has experienced some loss of cognitive functioning. I'm not saying he's deep in the grip of Alzheimers or anything like that. 8.8 percent of adults over 65 [nih.gov] have some amount dementia so it would hardly be shocking if he's in the early stages. He does and and has done so many "crazy" things that it's pretty hard to judge with any hope of accuracy because we don't have the data even though he's been a public figure for a long time.
But there is little evidence that Trump is getting worse.
You don't know the man ev
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Shutdowns occur when the disagreements between the two parties are so severe that no acceptable compromise can be reached before the deadline for funding is reached. This means that each party could end the shutdown by surrendering; blaming this on one particular party does nothing but identify the bias of the writer.
My own opinion is that the shutdown is a good thing and Trump deserves the credit for the shutdown.
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On Korea...
It might be a "good cop/bad cop" kind of negotiation. The problem is I don't think the "bad cop" is acting.
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Well about 60% of the population will blindly side with someone who is a party member (30% will always support republicans no matter what and will change their views to match them) and 30% will be the same for democrats. For these people Politics is a religion to them, and spurred by divisive media from the 24/7 breaking news channels, they have become very vocal, and become far more entrenched in such a camp. Now to them the other side just isn't wrong, but they EVIL. This group usually suffers mostly lac
Re:I already know (Score:5, Funny)
I already know the cause...well I did but I forgot about it. What are we talking about again?
You were saying how much you loved Elon Musk, Tesla, space colonization, AI, self driving cars, and anything else high tech.
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I often wonder what the morons that mod you up are like in real life. Probably spend a lot of their time scrubbing a carrot. Like you.
Is that a euphemism? 'cause it sounded like a euphemism. I think it's a euphemism.
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Aaaaaand we have the perfect slashcomment. Experts say X, someone stops in here, says it's false, provides no links, no proof, just an unflinching assertion.
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Nahh. I was channeling the experts. Google Type 3 Diabetes.
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(+5, Confident) is the way things go here lately.
Re:Nonsense (Score:5, Informative)
Alzheimer's is distinct from vascular dementia. From this study: [nih.gov]
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Thanks. It's posts like this that keep Slashdot interesting, rather then just armchair experts making shit up.
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No. This is a first result. If it's found interesting enough (sounds like it should be) *THEN* controlled studies will be done. I don't know that a blind study could be ethically done, however, as even if it doesn't cause Alzheimer's gum disease is a disease, and likely to make you lose your teeth.
OTOH, maybe they'll just do studies where they neutralize the toxin, and if that prevents or cures Alzheimer's that that will probably suffice.
Re: Brain Sand (Score:2)
Another possible explanation: fluoride prevents tooth decay that, in the past, would have left someone mostly toothless by middle age. If you have no teeth, gingivitis probably isn't a major problem. If you have all of your teeth, but minimal dental care (beyond fluoridation during childhood), gingivitis is likely to be a major problem later in life. Fluoride didn't cause the gingivitis, it just fixed enough BIGGER problems for gingivitis itself to become a big problem.