Fact, Fiction or Roller Coaster Ride? by John Zeisel
“Fast Food Causes Alzheimer’s Disease”
This headline appeared recently in many newspapers throughout the world. I receive them daily because I have logged the term “Alzheimer’s” intro my Google Alerts file— http://www.google.com/alerts—along with “I’m Still Here”, Hearthstone, my name, and my wife’s name. This means that every day before I wake up there are a selection of headlines in my inbox about Alzheimer’s from around the world. I also receive similar articles daily as an email in the Alzheimer’s daily news from
http://ewarner@agelessdesign.org/ the website developed and managed by Mark and Ellen Warner.
Click on the titles below to see the entire articles.
Fast Food Causes Alzheimer's Disease, Makes Population StupidNatural News.com - Phoenix, USA—They develop signs of Alzheimer's disease. That's what Swedish researchers
discovered in recent findings published by the Karolinska Institute’s ...
Junk Food Diet Associated with Alzheimer'sKARK - Little Rock, USA—Abnormal tangles in the brain associated with
Alzheimer's disease were found in mice
that were fed junk food for nine months. A new study indicates diets ...
What is the research basis of the headline:
“Fast Food Increases the Risk of Alzheimer’s?” Did the researchers randomly assign elders to eat or abstain from McDonald's, Wendy’s, Burger King, KFC, and so on; following these elders for years while controlling for other potential influences—weight, exercise, alcohol intake, crossword puzzles and Sudoku, among others; and then saw a difference in the onset of Alzheimer’s? No not quite. They selected several mice genetically modified to carry the APOe4 gene—the gene that increases the likelihood among people for Alzheimer’s—and fed them lots of sugar, fat, and high cholesterol mouse food for 8 months. Among these mice, those who were fed these horrible diets—much like the director-actor in the film “Supersize Me” fed himself fast food for months—developed (surely among other maladies) a higher degree of plaques and tangles in their brains.
University of Sidney—Sydney researchers have made a breakthrough that will lead to a greater understanding of the causes of and treatments for neurodegenerative diseases.
At present neither Alzheimer's disease nor Frontotemporal dementia can be cured. Therefore, it is important to model the human diseases in animals to determine what is causing them and to develop a cure for these debilitating diseases.
Dr. Lars Ittner and Professor Jürgen Götz from the University of Sidney have succeeded in developing a mouse strain of Pick's disease, a form of Frontotemporal dementia, which reproduces, for the first time, Parkinsonism (resting tremor, muscle rigidity, bradykinesia, and postural instability) in a mouse model.
"The mice even show a reduced footstep length that is reminiscent of Parkinson's disease," said Götz. The researchers could also show that a single dose of L-Dopa (which is used to treat Parkinson's patients) caused a marked improvement in the mice.
The researchers are convinced that with their unique model of Pick's disease, FTD-associated Parkinsonism and memory impairment, they will be able to contribute to the finding of a cure of these diseases. For full story go to: usyd.edu
My gosh! Poison genetically engineered mice with sugar, fat, and cholesterol and they get sick. What a surprise! I wonder if the researchers also assessed the impact of these diets on the mice’s livers, kidneys, hearts, skin and other organs. If so, they probably would have detected similar damage.
This is not meant to put down the results of this important research; rather it is a comment on the reporting of such results. There is little question that high fat-sugar-cholesterol diets are bad for mice and people alike. Such results, however, would not make news. Alzheimer’s medical treatment research makes news. So we hear, almost every day that some research has either found a potential cause—fast food—or that what we thought might be a potential cure is not—Ginkgo Biloba, an herbal supplement recent research has found to have no effect on memory
Alzheimer's: Herbs don't do it Monroe News Star - Monroe, LA, USAThe GEM study showed that 240 milligrams of ginkgo daily had no effect on the onset of dementia or development of Alzheimer's. Ginkgo supplements are among ...
Ginkgo Biloba Shows No Benefit in Dementia, Alzheimer's Disease Medscape - USADescribe the effect of Ginkgo biloba on Alzheimer's disease. Disclosure: Susan Jeffrey has disclosed no relevant financial relationships. ...or Flurizan, a Myriad Genetics developed drug that was tested at a cost of $100 million
Reuters—Flurizan failed to help patients in a pivotal clinical test.
Flurizan, an experimental drug for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, failed to help patients in a pivotal clinical test.
"We are disappointed that Flurizan failed to achieve significance in this study, and we will now discontinue development of this compound," Myriad President and CEO Peter Meldrum announced. The Danish pharmaceutical group Lundbeck lost $100 million in the testing and development of the drug.In North America alone there are over 5 million people in various stages of Alzheimer’s and other dementias. Assuming an average of five people who love and care for each person, there are at least 30 million waiting for positive news about a cure or delay for Alzheimer’s. Then there are the millions of baby boomers just reaching the age when they are really worrying about getting old and sick. We are probably talking about 50 million people in North America in this situation. Similar numbers— actually a little bit higher—are faced with the same situation in Europe. With 100 million people in North America and Europe desperately hanging on every news article about Alzheimer’s, newspapers and news agencies like Reuters, CNN, and The New York Times news bureau all need to be more responsible about reporting “Alzheimer’s news.” Of course being careful might not sell as many newspapers or ads on internet news services. But what is more important—selling newspapers or reporting news about Alzheimer’s in a responsible way that avoids playing with 100 million people’s emotions like bouncing balls.
