Copper and Alzheimer's

[woodstock]

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-copper-alzheimers-disease-20130819,0,5977613.story

 

[PilotAlan]

Yeah.
They said aluminum cookwear did it.
Then it was teflon.
Last year they said iron causes it.
Now it's copper.

They have no clue.
Everything causes Alzheimers, cancer, baldness, blindness, projectile vomiting, and heart disease. Or doesn't, if you wait a year.

 

[Henning]

Yeah.
They said aluminum cookwear did it.
Then it was teflon.
Last year they said iron causes it.
Now it's copper.

They have no clue.
Everything causes Alzheimers, cancer, baldness, blindness, projectile vomiting, and heart disease. Or doesn't, if you wait a year.

My bet goes to cholesterol meds.

 

[docmirror]

Thank you. Interesting stuff, and something like I kind of figured it might be. I was expecting to find some link to modern society and environment that western civ lives with for a long period of time.

 

[geneseib]

Yeah.
They said aluminum cookwear did it.
Then it was teflon.
Last year they said iron causes it.
Now it's copper.

They have no clue.
Everything causes Alzheimers, cancer, baldness, blindness, projectile vomiting, and heart disease. Or doesn't, if you wait a year.

Proper scientific research doesn't exist any more.

 

[azure]

Proper scientific research doesn't exist any more.

Actually, this IS what science looks like -- even good science. Results have to be examined, methods scrutinized for flaws, hidden assumptions, bias; ideas have to be tested in as many ways as can reasonably be implemented. Eventually wrong ideas are ruled out and everyone knows they're wrong. And the vast majority of ideas turn out to be wrong in the end, even the ones that survive the first experimental tests.

The problem is, the public doesn't understand how science works. They only know that science (and engineering) has given us drugs and machines that help us live longer, ways of getting from point A to point B that our grandparents never imagined, wonderful gadgets that store and process information and connect people all over the world, and so they figure scientists are these brilliant people who are supposed to know everything. And so when preliminary results are reported that later get turned upside down, they see that scientists are more often wrong than right and conclude that these guys aren't so smart after all, or that good research is a thing of the past.

 

[PilotAlan]

And so when preliminary results are reported that later get turned upside down, they see that scientists are more often wrong than right and conclude that these guys aren't so smart after all, or that good research is a thing of the past.

I think this is the issue. Science today is all about the press conference and the grants. Preliminary reports are published and promoted, without the rigor and follow up they used to have.
Also, peer reviewed journals seem to be dropping in the quality and rigor of review.

 

[flyingron]

The Aluminum turned out to be the stain they were using on the slide. There's still an argument as to whether the plaques found are the cause or the effect of the disease. I was at a technical conference where the theory nearly came to blows.

 

[EdFred]

My thought is that nothing really "causes" it other than being old. By artificially extending our lifespans longer than they evolved for, we get to witness all sorts of problems when our bodies start to break down. Some of it muscular, some of it skeletal, some of it neurological. Some people are going to be more succeptible to others based on genetic make up. No one gets Alzheimers at 20 or 30. It always seems to onset beyond what our life span had been for tens of thousands of year.

Want to fix the problem? Don't live so long.

 

[Dr. O]

Science is a bloody, last man standing, cage contest for the truth.
The problem is that it is conducted by humans, the most ruthless carnivore on the planet. And also the most illogical, biased, irrational, and easily distracted ( s e x - do not think about - s e x ) animal on the planet.

It is unlikely that the tangles in the white matter of the brain are caused by something so simple as ingesting a single Element or a certain Molecule.

OK, back to our regularly scheduled program - sex, of course.

 

[PaulS]

Actually, this IS what science looks like -- even good science. Results have to be examined, methods scrutinized for flaws, hidden assumptions, bias; ideas have to be tested in as many ways as can reasonably be implemented. Eventually wrong ideas are ruled out and everyone knows they're wrong. And the vast majority of ideas turn out to be wrong in the end, even the ones that survive the first experimental tests.

The problem is, the public doesn't understand how science works. They only know that science (and engineering) has given us drugs and machines that help us live longer, ways of getting from point A to point B that our grandparents never imagined, wonderful gadgets that store and process information and connect people all over the world, and so they figure scientists are these brilliant people who are supposed to know everything. And so when preliminary results are reported that later get turned upside down, they see that scientists are more often wrong than right and conclude that these guys aren't so smart after all, or that good research is a thing of the past.

Sorry, I must respectfully disagree with you, anthropogenic Global warming science is settled, no scrutiny, no flaws, Al Gore and a bunch of poly-sci phds told us so......

 

[Cap'n Jack]

Sorry, I must respectfully disagree with you, anthropogenic Global warming science is settled, no scrutiny, no flaws, Al Gore and a bunch of poly-sci phds told us so......

Say what?

Scientists are still looking at it. There's a consensus now, but that will change when (if) someone comes up with a theory that explains the data we now have and makes predictions about the climate that we can test.

 

[EdFred]

Say what?

Scientists are still looking at it. There's a consensus now, but that will change when (if) someone comes up with a theory that explains the data we now have and makes predictions about the climate that we can test.

Which is impossible with no control. It's not like we have another planet Earth at a Lagrange point, where we can watch what happens with no humans present.

 

[flyingron]

Well a lot of Alzheimers (and perhaps with things like Autism spectrum disorders) are that we have a lot more precise diagnosis. It used to be that old people were just "getting senile" and there were always the "wierd kids" out there.

There appears to be some hereditary aspects to Alzheimers but that's not real well developed either. My mother-in-law had a diagnosis of either Alzheimers or Vascular Dimentia. It really didn't matter as the treatment was pretty much the same for both of them and the prognosis is that she would be dead within 8 years anyhow.

 

[PaulS]

Say what?

Scientists are still looking at it. There's a consensus now, but that will change when (if) someone comes up with a theory that explains the data we now have and makes predictions about the climate that we can test.

"The science is settled, Gore told the lawmakers. Carbon-dioxide emissions — from cars, power plants, buildings and other sources — are heating the Earth's atmosphere."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9047642


Edit: quotation marks added by me as a quotation from the article.....

 

[ebetancourt]

Say what?

Scientists are still looking at it. There's a consensus now, but that will change when (if) someone comes up with a theory that explains the data we now have and makes predictions about the climate that we can test.

The scientists may be still looking, but the politicians have declared that the consensus makes it fact. And a lot of "scientists" helped that argument.

 

[steingar]

There has always been a debate whether amyloid plaques are a cause or a consequence in Alzheimers. I tend to think the latter, as alleles of the presenilins, proteins that process the beta-amyloid (the proteins that process pre beta-amyloid to it's mature form) are causative of early onset Alzheimers in humans and a similar illness in mice.

That said, what gives Alzheimers to the rest of us? That is an extraordinarily good question. There are alleles of the Apolipoprotein gene that are also correlated (and probably causative) of a later onset Alzheimers. But what lipid metabolism has to do with it is unclear, though it is possible that amyloid itself is modified by apolipoprotein. Moreover, the "causative" alleles of Apolipoprotein are very common in humans, yet Alzheimers incidence is nowhere near so common.

I heard a very prominent researcher claim that Alzheimers was just another symptom of the aging process, and if we lived long enough we'd all get it. But were that the case, I'd expect lesions of some degree in all elderly brains, and we just don't see that. In contrast, one does see some degree of osteoperosis in most postmenopausal women and some degree of prostrate enlargement in most elderly men. Gotta go get my own checked. Isn't getting old grand?

So I can't really say if my father's early onset Alzheimers (he quit at 55 because he didn't know what he was doing) was a result of his genes, his lifestyle (never knew anyone who drank more or exercised less) or the aluminum cookware? My guess is a combination of all these things. But I think genetics trumps them all. Alzheimers stalks my family, and its affected people on three continents with many different lifestyles.

 

[write-stuff]

I think this is the issue. Science today is all about the press conference and the grants.

I hear this over and over and it remains hogwash. Scientists don't live off of grants - they have university salaries. Grants fund projects but are not the main source of personal income for the grantees. And scientists doing it for press and public recognition? I'd guess that 99.99% of basic research projects never result in a press conference.

 

[flyingron]

I hear this over and over and it remains hogwash. Scientists don't live off of grants - they have university salaries. Grants fund projects but are not the main source of personal income for the grantees. And scientists doing it for press and public recognition? I'd guess that 99.99% of basic research projects never result in a press conference.

Chortle. You haven't spent much time in academia, have you. You don't hang around drawing a university salary if you don't bring in grants. While it isn't your source of income, it is your continued livlihood, at least until you have brought in enough and published enough to get tenure. The point of tenure is to free you from that dog-eat-dog cycle.

 

[steingar]

I think this is the issue. Science today is all about the press conference and the grants. Preliminary reports are published and promoted, without the rigor and follow up they used to have.
Also, peer reviewed journals seem to be dropping in the quality and rigor of review.

The real problem today is this is the public's view of science and scientists. So long as it persists we won't see our best and brightest go into science and technology. Why should they work hard to join a bunch of grant-mongering scofflaws? Unfortunately, this is a huge danger to a society that makes its collective living developing cutting edge technology, as I have said before on more than one occasion.

 

[Bob Noel]

My thought is that nothing really "causes" it other than being old. By artificially extending our lifespans longer than they evolved for, we get to witness all sorts of problems when our bodies start to break down. Some of it muscular, some of it skeletal, some of it neurological. Some people are going to be more succeptible to others based on genetic make up. No one gets Alzheimers at 20 or 30. It always seems to onset beyond what our life span had been for tens of thousands of year.

Want to fix the problem? Don't live so long.

Your "analysis" completely ignores early onset Alzheimer's

Or do you seriously suggest killing everyone before they hit 50?

 

[flyingron]

So I can't really say if my father's early onset Alzheimers ....

If you can manage it, you may wish to read Tom Dibaggio's books. He essentially got diagnosed with early onset alzheimers and wrote about it. I heard an NPR interview with him as well. He used to run the local herb greenhouse here in northern Virginia (his son still has the business).

 

[steingar]

If you can manage it, you may wish to read Tom Dibaggio's books. He essentially got diagnosed with early onset alzheimers and wrote about it. I heard an NPR interview with him as well. He used to run the local herb greenhouse here in northern Virginia (his son still has the business).

Don't need to. I lived through it once and probably will again. I sure as hell don't to to read about it in my spare time!

Haven't genotyped my own apolipoprotein alleles either. I could, but I just don't want to know. Me and Jim Watson.

 

[John Baker]

I don't believe it is possible to avoid all of the things our young scientist in post grad school claim is bad for us.

San Diego is now in the process of replacing all of it's 100+ year old cast iron water delivery pipes with new plastic pipes that contain who knows what that will soon be leaching into our drinking water.

Myself, I rarely ingest water that came from my tap, San Diego's drinking water tastes like it came from a stagnant farm pond. It is also incredibly hard water that soon fouls any appliance or machine it runs through. I use distilled water for my coffee maker, my water pick, and a water cooled router motor I have in my shop.

I think the best prevention from Alzheimer's disease is simply keeping your brain active. I have a pilot buddy in my same age group that keeps his mind sharp by continually solving various math problems in his head, he is a whole lot faster than my calculator. He and his wife, as a mental exercise, spell words backwards to each other every day, he is about 75.

-John

 

[LJS1993]

Gentlemen I firmly believe we are basically poisoning ourselves by eating beef, chicken, etc, that is pumped full of steroids and other strange drugs to make large product.

 

[write-stuff]

Chortle. You haven't spent much time in academia, have you.

Wow, I guess you got me there, flyingron. I only have a degree in computer science with post grad work in statistics. Most of what I know about basic research and grants comes from two family members who have spent their lives in academia doing research, one in physics and one in chemistry.

 

[rpadula]

Which is impossible with no control. It's not like we have another planet Earth at a Lagrange point, where we can watch what happens with no humans present.

There might be! I saw a fascinating NOVA last night about multiverse theory. There could be another universe with another Milky Way, Sol, Earth, and yes even another EdFred!

The caveat was, there might be no way to observe/communicate with the other universes.

Also, there might be "slight differences" between the two. Like people having 4 arms. Or zoom climbs being safer than Vy climbs. But otherwise, the same. Mind-bending stuff!!!

 

[Fearless Tower]

The real problem today is this is the public's view of science and scientists. So long as it persists we won't see our best and brightest go into science and technology. Why should they work hard to join a bunch of grant-mongering scofflaws? Unfortunately, this is a huge danger to a society that makes its collective living developing cutting edge technology, as I have said before on more than one occasion.

The problem is that the scientific world is run by less than perfect human beings. It has unfortunately lost a lot of integrity and consequently credibility in recent years as more and more people are found to be cherry picking data in order to support the conclusions and biases that they have made up in their minds going into the research.

That isn't the scientific process as we know it, but too many people have taken short cuts and bypassed the true scientific process to prove their points.....and while I don't think that applies to all science, those that have sacrificied their integrity have negatively impacted the scientific community as a whole.

 

[EdFred]

Your "analysis" completely ignores early onset Alzheimer's

Or do you seriously suggest killing everyone before they hit 50?

No, it didn't. Do you have documentation of a significant portion of twenty somethings suffering from Alzheimers? There will always be outliers to the norm. A case here, or a case there does not a trend make.

No, I never said kill everyone before they reach 50. But when things start to break, let them break. It's that's person's time. Next year I turn 40. As I will have no wife or kids by the time I am 40, I will not be seeking any treatment for things that are part of the natural decaying process. If I get cancer, I get cancer - nature has determined that it is my time. I will cash out, and spend my last however many months seeing various parts of the world, and make Angel Falls the last place I visit. Sure if I break a leg, or arm, I will get it reset as that's not a condition of my body breaking down. But anything that's a decaying process, I'm not going to try and extend my life to the point where I forget how to use the can, and **** myself while watching Murder She Wrote reruns.

 

[EdFred]

The problem is that the scientific world is run by less than perfect human beings. It has unfortunately lost a lot of integrity and consequently credibility in recent years as more and more people are found to be cherry picking data in order to support the conclusions and biases that they have made up in their minds going into the research.

That isn't the scientific process as we know it, but too many people have taken short cuts and bypassed the true scientific process to prove their points.....and while I don't think that applies to all science, those that have sacrificied their integrity have negatively impacted the scientific community as a whole.

It's the 99% 1% rule.
"All cops are bad, all lawyers are shysters and all scientiests are fraudulent."

 

[MAKG1]

Which is impossible with no control. It's not like we have another planet Earth at a Lagrange point, where we can watch what happens with no humans present.

Sorry. Wrong.

You can do observational controlled studies. Just not the most simple minded strategies.

Do we have a universe with no gravity to test that out, or do we rely on the variations in the gravitational field to test it?

I guess Newton, Kepler and Eddington weren't "real" scientists.

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

Why be a scientist at $150k per year max salary when you can go to Wall-street and steal millions as a banker or stock broker or trader or a number of other positions.

The real problem today is this is the public's view of science and scientists. So long as it persists we won't see our best and brightest go into science and technology. Why should they work hard to join a bunch of grant-mongering scofflaws? Unfortunately, this is a huge danger to a society that makes its collective living developing cutting edge technology, as I have said before on more than one occasion.

 

[MAKG1]

The problem is that the scientific world is run by less than perfect human beings. It has unfortunately lost a lot of integrity and consequently credibility in recent years as more and more people are found to be cherry picking data in order to support the conclusions and biases that they have made up in their minds going into the research.

That isn't the scientific process as we know it, but too many people have taken short cuts and bypassed the true scientific process to prove their points.....and while I don't think that applies to all science, those that have sacrificied their integrity have negatively impacted the scientific community as a whole.

"More and more?"

Occasionally, there have been problems. It's not new. Look up Piltdown Man.

What has happened in recent years is at least two orchestrated political attacks on science itself. When you repeatedly attack the messenger without any legitimate basis, some people are credulous enough to believe it.

Yes, you can lose credibility by someone lying about you. It happens all the time.

 

[steingar]

The problem is that the scientific world is run by less than perfect human beings. It has unfortunately lost a lot of integrity and consequently credibility in recent years as more and more people are found to be cherry picking data in order to support the conclusions and biases that they have made up in their minds going into the research.

No, scientists have been been lambasted in the court of public opinion by those who consider their findings inconvenient and arrogantly think they know better.

That isn't the scientific process as we know it, but too many people have taken short cuts and bypassed the true scientific process to prove their points.....and while I don't think that applies to all science, those that have sacrificied their integrity have negatively impacted the scientific community as a whole.

Try telling me what the scientific process is, and then specify how its been abrogated.

 

[MAKG1]

Why be a scientist at $150k per year max salary when you can go to Wall-street and steal millions as a banker or stock broker or trader or a number of other positions.

Yeah, that one always cracks me up. "Follow the money?" Yeah, if you do that, you get led directly out of science. No one does science for the money, unless they are idiots. And it's real hard for an idiot to complete a Ph.D.

It's like trying to make a small fortune in aviation. I think we all know how to do that.

 

[EdFred]

Sorry. Wrong.

You can do observational controlled studies. Just not the most simple minded strategies.

Do we have a universe with no gravity to test that out, or do we rely on the variations in the gravitational field to test it?

I guess Newton, Kepler and Eddington weren't "real" scientists.

Fail. Try again. Observations of planetary motions are not affected by looking at them with a telecsope. On second thought, don't bother, you obviously missed the point.

 

[MAKG1]

Fail. Try again. Observations of planetary motions are not affected by looking at them with a telecsope. On second thought, don't bother, you obviously missed the point.

REALLY? You clearly do not understand more than comic book astronomy.

We have constant problems with observing atmospheric phenomena, and our own instruments. We go through a lot of trouble to remove those systematics. Have you read Shapley's paper about "the shape of the universe" (he really means the Galaxy -- the existence of other galaxies besides our own was not settled science at the time, and Shapley did not believe they existed)? That might give you a clue about how this stuff is really done. But I guess your mind is made up, so it really doesn't matter now, does it?

And you cannot prove universal gravitation only by observing planetary motions -- it may be dirty, but you can make multilevel epicycle models that work just as well. The Gravitational Constant can only be found in the lab, and the observer can change the measurement quite a bit. You have to know the masses of the two objects involved precisely, the distance between them, and measure really dinky forces without gravitating or charging the system yourself.

I guess I should go give up my astrophysics Ph.D. because some guy on the internet with strong opinions and really, really superficial understanding disagrees with me.

Right now, I'm working through precision pointing corrections for our telescope. The positions of the planets are affected by, among a whole lot of other things, the location of the observer on the earth, the time of night, time of year, motions of the north pole on the sky, atmospheric turbulence (especially CAT), cirrus clouds, telescope flexure, water vapor content (IR), even people jumping around on the deck in some circumstances.

Or are you trying to say that observing climate changes the climate itself rather than the observations of the climate? That's so wrong I won't even go there.

 

[EdFred]

Again, you missed the point. Read what I said again. When you actually understand it, get back to me. Maybe you should have taken some reading classes, because that's certainly a demonstrated deficiency for you.

Let me dumb it down for you.

Looking at a planet with a telescope does not affect the motion of the planet. The observer has absolutely zero effect on it.

 

[MAKG1]

Again, you missed the point. Read what I said again. When you actually understand it, get back to me. Maybe you should have taken some reading classes, because that's certainly a demonstrated deficiency for you.

Let me dumb it down for you.

Looking at a planet with a telescope does not affect the motion of the planet.

It changes what you THINK the planet is doing. And even if it didn't, that's not enough to prove gravity by itself. You clearly didn't understand my response. Not that I'd expect anything else from you. Your mind is made up and you're not going to listen, even to those who really do understand it better than you.

Do you really mean to say that observing the climate changes it? REALLY?

I read just fine. You said that there were no controls. That is wrong.

 

[EdFred]

It changes what you THINK the planet is doing. And even if it didn't, that's not enough to prove gravity by itself. You clearly didn't understand my response. Not that I'd expect anything else from you. Your mind is made up and you're not going to listen, even to those who really do understand it better than you.

Do you really mean to say that observing the climate changes it? REALLY?

I read just fine. You said that there were no controls. That is wrong.

You might be the stupidest claimed PhD I've ever encountered. I fully understood your response. Your response was solely made to try and pat yourself and your colleagues on the back while dismissing anything that someone else who isn't in your little PhD club might have to say.

And no, I did not say observing climate changes it. Being as smart and all knowing as you are compared to someone like me who is looked upon by you as someone who needs an instruction card on how to breathe, you should in all of your infinite wisdom know exactly what I was saying in that we lack a control in regards to our climate. Because you're so smart and all.

Enlighten us almighty enlightener!!