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WilderKat t1_iybgopr wrote

I don’t understand the negativity here. This is a start that can be built on. Maybe it won’t help my current family members with dementia, but for the following generation there might be more viable treatments because of these medications.

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CatumEntanglement t1_iycb8ck wrote

It's built on the faulty premise that plaques cause AD. That's why the drugs targeting plaques don't work...because plaques don't cause AD. The truth is that every single person who reaches about 80 shows plaques in the brain. People who show no age related dementia have plaques in the brain. Plaques don't denote Alzheimer's at all. It's a very old misconception that the public keeps hearing from people very invested in plaque-related treatments.

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Motherdiedtoday t1_iycdumt wrote

Isn't it possible that the processes resulting in AD begins many years before symptoms appear, and that deposits of amyloid plaque are an early sign of these processes, i.e., that plaque does not immediately cause cognitive decline and dementia, thus, it can be present in the brains of individuals who do not present any symptoms of AD (but who would eventually do so if they lived long enough)?

My mother died of AD last week. She only began showing symptoms in October of last year.

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CatumEntanglement t1_iyce3aq wrote

If that was the case then all people with plaques would have Alzheimer's, which is not the case. In my own lab I see brains from dementia free patients in their late 70s-90s who have plaques. It's an age related phenomenon to have brain plaques as we age. Additionally there are a significant nunber of AD patients who have all the classic symptoms of AD while alive, but are found to have brains that are completely plaque free during a post-mortem analysis.

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