Copper transport drug restores memory and clears toxic Alzheimer's proteins

In the words of Derek Lowe:

Amyloid-directed therapies truly, truly do not appear to be the answer for Alzheimer’s treatment. When I started work in the field back in the early 1990s, I was convinced of the opposite - the evidence looked very strong that defects in amyloid processing were indeed the cause of the disease. But that was thirty-five years ago, thirty-five years in which therapy after therapy after therapy aimed at amyloid mechanisms has failed.

[…] We’re way past persistence, way past focus, way past optimism and multiple shots on goal and old-college-tries. Do something else! For God's sake, do something else.

— https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/anti-amyloid-antib...

I don't see why this is definitely doomed just because they discuss beta-amyloid plaques. Those exist and are real. They probably don't cause it any more than tombstones cause graveyards; very related, but not in the directly mechanistic way we wish.

> Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a prevalent neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the accumulation of amyloid-beta (Aβ) peptides in the brain.

This can be true and still not be the specific mechanism.

You can treat a specific waste product or you can repair the waste stream. The issue may be waste, but not a specific product, or the issue may not be the waste stream at all.

This work appears to demonstrate evidence of waste stream repair via a well-known waste-product. That doesn't mean that any specific waste product is or is not the problem or that this particular stream is definitely going to remove enough of the waste (if that was the problem).

Maybe there have been a lot of drugs which have similarly attempted waste-stream repair so there's good reason to doubt it on that alone. But I don't think that mentioning beta-amyloid plaque is enough to discard this out-of-hand.

For humans, not yet progressed to trials though safety has been evaluated for other diseases, so possible for trials to happen quickly?

" the compound has strong potential to quickly transition into human clinics because it has already undergone safety evaluations for other diseases."

Over time, everything breaks down. If this actually fixes some plumbing issue that would be great. Of course, it probably will lead to another downstream plumbing issue, but one thing at a time.

Many people without dementia show amyloid plaques in their brains in autopsies. It's becoming more accepted now that there are multiple interrelated causes after decades pursuing the simplistic amyloid plaque theory.

The article is bordering on irresponsible.

What makes alzheimer's difficult is that it is not really a single uniform disease. There are subtypes.

Since my mother has it, I was presented with an option of a genetic test. There are several genes which increase your risk. However, if one has PSEN1 that will 100% guarantee early onset alzheimer's at some point.

I'm still on the fence if I want to know.

I really hope we get some viable treatments for this terrible disease. Early onset azlheimer's is awful. I cannot imagine having malfunctioning brain.

they found people who use glucosamine (joint pain, knees etc)

have a 25% higher chance of Alzheimer's progression

https://thesciverse.org/scientists-found-that-a-supplement-t...

(still can't figure out if that website is "AI" but they have great articles)

That's the predominant theory, but nothing affecting them has yet proven to be efficacious so far (AFAIK).

Likewise, at one time everyone "knew" aluminum was a culprit, because it showed up in autopsy analyses of affected people. However, it turned out that correlation wasn't from aluminum causing it, so avoiding aluminum didn't affect the disease.