Telly
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2003
- Messages
- 2,395
I thought that this was an interesting and unusual article:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health...ry-of-alzheimers-disease-draws-fresh-interest
https://www.npr.org/sections/health...ry-of-alzheimers-disease-draws-fresh-interest
It's an idea that just a few years ago would've seemed to many an easy way to drain your research budget on bunk science. Money has poured into Alzheimer's research for years, but until very recently not much of it went toward investigating infection in causing dementia.
But this "germ theory" of Alzheimer's, as Norins calls it, has been fermenting in the literature for decades. Even early 20th century Czech physician Oskar Fischer — who, along with his German contemporary Dr. Alois Alzheimer, was integral in first describing the condition — noted a possible connection between the newly identified dementia and tuberculosis.
If the germ theory gets traction, even in some Alzheimer's patients, it could trigger a seismic shift in how doctors understand and treat the disease.