Scientists hope they've found a drug to stop neurodegenerative brain diseases | Hacker News Reader

Scientists hope they've found a drug to stop neurodegenerative brain diseases

bbc.com

122 pointsmisotaur28 comments

My current day job involves doing the tech behind a series of dementia related online courses.

Awesomely, we just kicked off the latest running of our Preventing Dementia MOOC:

https://mooc.utas.edu.au/courses/preventing-dementia-2017-03

I emailed this link to our academic team as I'm sure they'll get bombarded with people asking why they should make changes to their life style if there is a magical cure just around the corner....

Is there a short summary anywhere of recommendations for life style changes that do benefit the fight against dementia? I don't have it currently, but I must admit the older I get the more the prospect concerns me.

The MIND diet

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25681666 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26086182

Here's the tl; dr....

The major risk factor for dementia is ageing.

Approximately 30% of dementia cases may be attributed to seven key modifiable risk factors:

* Diabetes

* Midlife hypertension

* Low educational attainment

* Physical inactivity

* Smoking

* Obesity

* Depression

I just enrolled. Thanks for posting this.

https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine suggests we already have a drug that works fairly well for some diseases.

Nicotine is a pretty awesome drug; shame about its effects on the vascular system. If you are working on things more serious than getting a stroke in your 50s/60s (e.g. schizophrenia, serious depression, fighting an existential war) it's a worthwhile and valuable drug to take.

I've long been fascinated that world war II was fought with all sides essentially powered by nicotine and caffeine. It sounds like a joke, but I don't intend it that way. Some pretty incredible efforts and results were obtained. Although I don't use any supplemental drugs myself, I have used both of these two in the past and remain a fan.

(IIRC the heart disease that results from smoking is believed to be a side effect of the CO, while the stiffening of the vessels is side effect of the insecticide nicotine).

Of course, any nicotine you take, you want to be getting from a process other than setting tobacco on fire.

I also read that people didn't use to have ADHD like today, they had chain-smoking coffee junkies.

I recently helped an elderly friend with Parkinson's try out drinking lots of cold brew green tea and taking nicotine patches. It did help symptoms some, especially tremors and getting to sleep at night---which was already a great triumph since he had basically already maxed out what the orthodox prescription drugs can do.

Stimulants do have an effect on your cardiovascular system. Everybody knows that caffeine can make your heart race. Nicotine is not different in that regard.

It's great, but it's not a wonder drug without any side-effects. With pure nicotine without all the tar etc, addiction is not at all a problem though as Gwern also writes.

Didn't they also take lots of other stuff in WWII (and still today)? Though I can see that the rank and file would have mostly stuck with smoking and coffee.

With respect to WW2 and stimulants, check out the "Red Ball Express", where American truck drivers used amphetamines. The Germans used "Pervitin". Japanese pilots used amphetamines, though I'm not sure of a phrase to point you to.

This is a nice reading.

The only problem I see with anything inhaled (that is to some limited extent promoted here) is that it without compromise contaminates the surrounding air and forces the the bystanders to involuntarily to consume the byproduct.

There's alternate delivery mechanisms for nicotine. I've been using a rather foul-tasting "mint" oral spray [0]. It tastes like mint-flavoured death, but it's good for a quick 1mg dose.

[0] https://www.amazon.ca/Nicorette-69547-Quickmist-Duo/dp/B004V...

Why not patches?

An ex-smoker might mentally need the quick fix? For a never-smoker, patches are great.

Patches work great for long term delivery. Mints or gum works for people who need a quick fix---that's mostly ex-smokers. Never-smokers can probably stick to patches.

On the other hand: I hate cigarette smoke---but I'm only mildly annoyed by second-hand vaping fumes.

New studies indicate that sleep is an important factor in cleaning up protein junk built up in the brain during wakeful hours. I wonder if the "real" impact of trazedone is the improvement in sleep quality and therefore by extension an effective maintainer of neurological physiology.

DBM being https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dibenzoylmethane

I'm going to talk to my family whether we should gice this (and trazedone) to my dad

Seems to me it would be just straightforward to get a list of people taking trazodone for long periods and measure their rates of neurodegeneration versus the general population versus those taking ssris.

Depression is repeatedly linked to changes in BDNF and neurogenesis, so you would probably just see greater neurodegeneration compared to healthy controls anyway. Post-marketing surveillance is hard to draw any causal conclusions from...

Trazodone is also used for sleep.

I think much more widely for sleep than depression.... it was originally an anti-depressent but had a nasty side-effect of making one very sleepy.

Trazodone helps me for sleep, it's incredible. I'm out like a light and it's not addictive. If you have nighttime anxiety and stress-related sleep issues, it can be a godsend.

I have heard that it is addictive so I'm curious as to what your experience is when not taking it. No withdrawal symptoms at all?

Nope, zero addiction. I take it about 5x a week, generally have weekends off.

also used for anger issues

It's interesting to see a sleep drug that might prevent Alzheimer's. I recently found out that benedryl might cause it.

That's why you compare against SSRIs

This is great, but if I read the study correctly, it's only been tested in mice for now. So I wouldn't get my hopes too high for now (I'd estimate the chances of success at 5% or less at this point).

prion diseases too??? That's hard to believe.

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