GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

A December 23, 2019 Arutz Sheva 7 article spotlighted work from Israeli scientists who found that the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine, which treats tuberculosis and bladder cancer, may also prevent Alzheimer’s disease. Bladder cancer patients who did not receive BCG had a significantly higher risk of developing AD than those who did. And healthy people who never received BCG had four times the risk for developing Alzheimer’s than did those who did. According to the article, “It’s important to note that the researchers have not developed a vaccine that prevents Alzheimer’s. However, shared [Hervé] Bercovier “our study is an important step towards understanding the ways in which our immune system is a major player in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s and how the BCG vaccine, which modulates the immune system, may serve as an effective preventative treatment to this crippling condition.””

IN MEMORIAM

A December 20, 2019 STAT article reported on the death of renegade Alzheimer’s disease research Robert Moir of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School at age 58. His theory that AD is linked to microbes in the brain, and that amyloid is a defensive response, was panned for years as he struggled for both funding and platforms for publishing his work. According to the article, “Maybe it was his humble background that gave Moir the courage to follow the science and not the crowd, damn the career consequences. He grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere in western Australia and didn’t learn to read or write until he was 12. Compared to where he might have wound up, being punished for questioning Alzheimer’s orthodoxy was nothing.”

MUST READS

A December 22, 2019 New York Times (via Business Standard) articlelooked at the potential positives and negatives of taking an Alzheimer’s disease test. A diagnosis can help people to get their financial and legal affairs in order, make family plans and change their lifestyle. But it can also cause more questions than it answers, worries about the future and possibe depression. According to the article, “Dr. Jason Karlawish, an Alzheimer’s researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, did a formal study to gauge patients’ responses to learning that they had elevated levels of amyloid in their brain. He did not see catastrophic reactions to the bad news. No one died by suicide.”

A December 20, 2019 Alzheimer Gadfly piece indulged in a “thought experiment” about the potential consequences of an approved Alzheimer’s drug. Such drugs may cause serious side effects, worsen health, benefit only a few and be very expensive. According to the article, “He [Dr. Jason Karlawish] touches on the implications of discussing the pertinent genetics for a family, on practical issues of how such an agent might be used, or misused, in the current US healthcare scene, and ethical issues of how an individual might  stop treatment (not dwelling on a cognitive ability to do so, and invokes uncomfortable ideas about dementia patients suffering).”

RESEARCH AND SCIENCE

A December 21, 2019 AlzForum article looked at methods ‘outside the brain’ for treating Alzheimer’s disease. Results were presented earlier this month at CTAD on several methodologies. Attendees heard reports on trials for both the drug apabetalone, which changes the expression of genes via an epigenetic mechanism, and AMBAR, a plasma-exchange protocol. According to the article, “Both trials were plagued by the limitation that they did not use biomarkers to select people who truly had AD, muddling signs of efficacy.”