Smoke your pot! -WebMD
Posted on 07/24/2015 10:37:35 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A test detecting Alzheimer’s disease early may become easily available thanks to one plentiful bodily substance: saliva, a recently released study shows.
The saliva test was presented at the 2015 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Washington this week. Though research is still in its infancy, the saliva test represents the exciting future of diagnostic tools in development for the detection of the neurodegenerative disease.
While doctors are currently able to see the difference between a healthy brain and one affected by Alzheimer’s, the study emphasizes the importance of detecting Alzheimer’s-like changes early.
“As the field has continue
(Excerpt) Read more at wtkr.com ...
So I jump out of the airplane forgetting my chute sooner?
who wants to know this info unless there is definite help?....the meds out there are just a bandaid....
Eat your peas....
That being said I think there should be a real push to get a handle on this disease. I've seen far to many friends who were reasonably cognizant one day and a week or two later were effectively unable to handle their own affairs and they were to far gone to realize it.
This, IMO, is an area where gobment spending not only is justified, but is likely to produce far more economic gain than the initial cost.
Giving a person a warning so that they can put their affairs in order and make their wishes known to their families seems like a no brainier (excuse the pun).
Smoke your pot! -WebMD
Unless there's a cure, of course.
OTOH, the existence of a test might be a precursor to a cure.
Unless the government is involved, in which case it will simply be a tool of the IPAB. And therefore evil!
The soetoro regime can use it to take your guns.
However, there is NOTHING other than perhaps lifestyle changes that can be done to change it at this point. That raises a good question, do you really want to know? My parents were perfectly normal when Bush was President, and living a good, rich life. They both have severe Alzheimers now. What would it have brought them to know?
I think about this a lot. When you say, it would be good so people can make their wishes known, that just isn’t how it works in reality.
My dad was a clinical, medical guy. Practical. Down to earth. Before he started down the Alzheimer’s path, that we knew of, he and mom spent a vacation on a tropical island with another couple, whose husband had just had a stroke. One time I spoke with him on the phone on that trip, and he whispered into the phone, “Joe is MESSED UP. It’s horrible!”
Two years later he was far far more messed up than Joe. And now, maybe five years later, he is about like a one year old baby, though with occasional flashes of connection, growing fewer and farther between. He is non verbal, incontinent, and needs 24 hour care. But he finds things funny sometimes, and laughs, and dances. He is happy and he loves to wear nice clothes (and will try to put yours on if you leave a sweater on a chair) and spends a lot of time petting and murmuring to his little stuffed dog.
If you had asked him before, he would have said, pull the plug if I get forgetful. He would have never wnated this to happen to him. Yet he is a sweet child now. No one who knows him now would think he should be dead. So it is difficult to interpret a loved one’s wishes. No one wants to lose his maturity, personality, and mind itself. But it does happen. We must honor the life in front of us no matter what.
[[who wants to know this info unless there is definite help?....the meds out there are just a bandaid....]]
Caretakers might want a definitive answer when their loved ones start acting a bit off I suppose- but yeah, I wouldn’t think the person that gets diagnosed would want to hear it years early and have to worry for a longer period about losing their mind
One could enroll in clinical trials for potential disease modifying treatments, such as this might be:
Somewhere I read the story of a group of Catholic “nuns” whose lives were regimented so well that there was not any evident case of Alzheimer’s dementia. There was zero doubt on any day or hour what they were going to be doing, whether worship (to a standard liturgy) or a known kind of chore, and there was zero doubt as to its meaning (an offering to God).
A regimented supervision like that might seem extreme but it would be a more dignified way to complete life for Alzheimer’s victims until an effective biological therapy has been devised. I just mention Catholic nuns because that is what the story was about; it could surely be done in other flavors of faith as well. Atheists might have a problem here.
Alzheimer’s took my dad. Not sure the point of this test.
He was a good man, beyond good. He’d do anything for anyone, and was a kind, smart, funny, moral man. I’ve had more than one person, years later, tell me that he was the best person they’d ever known.
Daddy was never religious. He’d take us to church, but rarely went in. His mother, her whole life, wanted to see him know Jesus.
She died, and then he got sick. Before we lost him, he found Jesus. He really did have the sweet, simple faith of a child at that point. It was beautiful and miraculous. I knew my grandmother was smiling down from Heaven.
I would not take this test unless there were a medical reason to do so, and would not recommend it. I’d be concerned that people might do something rash, and the truth is that the best things sometimes come out of the worst situations. Alzheimer’s is the worst disease I can think of, but losing all hope is worse yet.
Knowing that years and years from now, you will die from something? You’re going to die anyway. We all will. These tests can only steal hope at this point.
Alzheimer’s took my dad. Not sure the point of this test.
He was a good man, beyond good. He’d do anything for anyone, and was a kind, smart, funny, moral man. I’ve had more than one person, years later, tell me that he was the best person they’d ever known.
Daddy was never religious. He’d take us to church, but rarely went in. His mother, her whole life, wanted to see him know Jesus.
She died, and then he got sick. Before we lost him, he found Jesus. He really did have the sweet, simple faith of a child at that point. It was beautiful and miraculous. I knew my grandmother was smiling down from Heaven.
I would not take this test unless there were a medical reason to do so, and would not recommend it. I’d be concerned that people might do something rash, and the truth is that the best things sometimes come out of the worst situations. Alzheimer’s is the worst disease I can think of, but losing all hope is worse yet.
Knowing that years and years from now, you will die from something? You’re going to die anyway. We all will. These tests can only steal hope at this point.
Some people are only inches from God, and it’s pride that keeps them from moving the rest of the way.
The Lord has a plan and purpose even in this sad suffering world in which “not a sparrow falls apart from the Father.”
We think of earthly lives. God thinks of eternities. A season of humbling is less than a flyspeck on His eternal calendar, and yet He takes notice of what happens during that season.
If I knew of the looming danger, I would keep on committing my life to the Lord and pray every day for love and mercy as I made my passage through the murk until I could not think to pray any more. Which might never happen, though I might not be able to tell anyone else in words after a point. This is a risk to anybody anyhow. Our lives could become extremely small even in our worldly estimation due to anything that could happen at any moment.
High alcohol consumption and/or malnutrition depletes thiamine in a huge way, causing a dementia that is called by several names, such as "Alcohol-related dementia (ARD)" and "Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome."
This type of dementia mimics Alzheimer's, but it will stop progressing or reverse when thiamine is restored.
Ordinary Thiamine is not well-absorbed orally. It is therefore given intravenously (200mg, three times per day) in the form of a "banana bag."
A synthetic thiamine called "Benfotiamine" is well-absorbed orally, but it does not significantly increase thiamine in the brain.
A synthetic thiamine called "Sulbutiamine" is well-absorbed orally and crosses the blood brain barrier. Sulbutiamine is also used as a smart drug by people without thiamine deficiency. Typical dosage is 400-1000 mg per day. Sulbutiamine is cheap and easy to get, so it is worth a try.
montanajoe: Giving a person a warning so that they can put their affairs in order and make their wishes known to their families seems like a no brainier (excuse the pun).
mountainbunny: Not sure the point of this test.
cynwoody: WTF cares? Unless there's a cure, of course.
Yelle: However, there is NOTHING other than perhaps lifestyle changes that can be done to change it at this point. That raises a good question, do you really want to know?
alexander_busek:
Even if no real cure were ever found, having a reliable, early test for Alzheimer's would yield at least two significant benefits:
A positive finding would represent a definite diagnosis, making it possible to more or less discount other diseases, thus allowing medical practioners to focus on treating the patient's Alzheimer's and not wasting their efforts on (and burdening the patient with) other therapies. Medications could be administered and therapies applied which were specific to Alzheimer's (and which might have at least a palliative effect).
A negative finding would, conversely, mean that the medical personnel could eliminate Alzheimer's as a possible explanation for the patient's incipient symptoms. They could then focus on other possible explanations.
Regards,
Alzheimer’s is marked by “neurofibrillary plaques” and might not be amenable to such nutritional support, but it’s good to know that not everyone who seems to suffer from such symptoms actually has Alzheimer’s. Having a good test for it might make it possible to identify the situations that make sense to pursue other therapies that would otherwise be in vain.
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