Can someone translate this into plain English?
For example, Cushing's syndrome is a disorder of extreme excess cortisol. The incidence is estimated to be somewhere between 1 in 100,000 and 1 in 26,000. In other words, it's an extremely rare condition. Suggesting that a congenital form of Cushing's syndrome is behind Alzheimer's wouldn't make sense.
There's a trend in alternative medicine to take a large collection of studies, reduce them to overly simplistic this-causes-that links, then to string them all together to generate misleading conclusions.
In this case, the comment is trying to claim that lifestyle factors combined with an extremely rare 1-in-100,000 condition from birth results in a set of hormonal changes that lead to damage to the insulating layer around your nerves. It's extreme speculation, not indicative of the actual science.
In general, be wary of anyone who claims to have solved complex medical conditions like Alzheimers that are still elusive to actual researchers. I hope it goes without saying that a random Hacker News commenter hasn't figured out what countless researchers have been working on for decades.
I hope that NIH funds a lot more Alzheimer's research looking for microbial causes, and also, that the technology for understanding gut microbiome continues to develop.
As you want to be pedantic 'Subclinical Hypercortisolism' would be the much more accurate terminology.
It's safe to say a paragraph on hackernews saying "oh it's just X", no matter how stuffed with scientific words, does not sum it all up.
This shouldn’t come across as “lmgtfy” and also nothing ChatGPT says can be taken as fact, but I do think it provided some helpful restructuring of the original.
I think its probably (mildly) overly pessimistic about some less-supported claims, and it may be worth reviewing the latest work on those claims first.
I personally feel that pregnenolone supplementation had a noticeably negative affect on my mental health. High prolactin would also be somewhat miserable but it makes slightly more sense that it could be better for alzheimer incidence rate. Drugs to lower prolactin, like cabergoline, have profound effects on the brain: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33186046
ChatGPT log can be viewed here: https://chat.openai.com/share/e79afa6f-ee58-42a9-99c1-bd3a1a...
So I was able to validate at a surface level that ChatGPT at least didn't completely mangle the meaning, intention, and facts.
But the truth is that the GP shouldnt be viewed as being “so well versed in the topic”. Most of these hormones (even pregnenolone) havent been studied well enough to understand the full effects of manipulating them in otherwise “healthy-ish” people. We know their most powerful effects in niche, extreme situations - so if someone has a true medical issue/emergency related to them we know to raise/lower them to get certain desired effects.
But we really don’t know the vast majority of the effects that subtle changes in these hormones might have. Supplementing pregnenolone seems to cause temporary depression in many of the folks I’ve talked with in the bodybuilding community - myself included (until supplementation is ceased). For me that effect greatly outweighs its potential contribution to Alzheimer’s later in life.
Once you see the pathway you can't unsee it.