The red pill of Alzheimer's: Would you take it?

[Don]

Would you want to know if you were likely to get it and how fast it would progress before it happens so you could prepare your self and your loved ones
or
would you rather stay blissfully ignorant to it and worry about it only if it does indeed hit you to avoid the stress of knowing what your destiny might turn out to be?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-20016 ... lt_related

It appears that a single gene variation provides clues as to how rapidly Alzheimer's disease will progress, according to an international investigation of tau proteins in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), which was led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The findings were reported online yesterday in the journal Public Library of Science Genetics.
It has recently been established in multiple studies that elevated levels of this protein in cerebrospinal fluid indicate Alzheimer's, and that because symptoms can reveal themselves slowly, testing levels of tau would offer a glimpse into the future--a red pill, if you will, on the nature of our own cognition as we age.
But the red pill has grown more sophisticated. It seems we can now tell not only whether we carry some dormant beginnings of Alzheimer's within, but also whether it will progress slowly or more like wildfire.
"Until now, most studies of genetic risks associated with Alzheimer's disease have looked at the risk of developing the disease, not the speed at which you will progress once you have it," says senior investigator Alison Goate. "The genetic marker we've identified deals with progression."

The team of experts analyzed 846 patients with elevated levels of tau, looking specifically at single DNA variations. What they discovered was that a genetic marker--a phosphorylated form of the protein (ptau)--is associated with rapid progression of the disease, and those who carry this marker have higher tau levels at all stages of the disease than those who do not.
"We have looked at data from three separate, international studies, and in all three, we found the same association," says first author Carlos Cruchaga, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Washington University. "So we are confident that it is real and that this gene variant is associated with progression in Alzheimer's disease. Other neurodegenerative conditions, like Parkinson's disease, don't produce elevated ptau in the CSF. It's only found in Alzheimer's disease."
In their news release, the authors suggest that knowing the rate of progression may actually be more useful than knowing whether the disease is present, because dealing with mild impairment is entirely different (for the afflicted as well as the caregivers) than dealing with severe dementia.
For those who prescribe to the blue pill approach when it comes to aging and death, there may be some comfort in knowing that in our lifetime we may be able to decrease or manipulate ptau in such a way as to at least slow the progression of Alzheimer's, the researchers say.
And as with so many diseases, the earlier the diagnosis, the greater the chance of survival--or, to be more accurate, postponement.
I am reminded of the September 10, 2001 New Yorker essay, My Father's Brain, by Jonathan Franzen, who belongs to that rare breed of authors who make the cover of Time and inspire all sorts of intellectual crushes (OK, mine), and who happens to hail from St. Louis, where this research was conducted.
In the essay, which happened to be published the day I turned 22, which was the day before the towers fell and the country began to undergo its own experiment in the collective memory of tragedy, Franzen describes dealing with a parent afflicted by Alzheimer's more elegantly than anything I've yet read on the subject:
After we'd kissed him goodbye and signed the forms that authorized the brain autopsy, after we'd driven through flooding streets, my mother sat down in our kitchen and uncharacteristically accepted my offer of undiluted Jack Daniel's. "I see now," she said, "that when you're dead you're really dead." This was true enough. But in the slow-motion way of Alzheimer's, my father wasn't much deader now than he'd been two hours or two weeks or two months ago. We'd simply lost the last of the parts out of which we could fashion a living whole. There would be no new memories of him. The only stories we could tell now were the ones we already had.
If you had the chance, would you take the red pill? Save your loved ones the pain of guessing? The legions of people who suffer through colonoscopies and mammograms and biopsies suggest that many of us would. It's the yearning to know so that we might better manipulate the outcome.
So the question then becomes, what do we do if we carry the marker that points to rapid decline? It is the ultimate irony--not wanting to lose self-awareness, yet suffering because of it.

[Deb]

I would want to know. If only to make some decisions for family, before hand.

[Michigan Girl]

If someone can invent a pill to diagnose a disease that might possibly be contracted in the future
and even go so far as to inform us of the severity and rate of progression of said disease, why
can't they just invent a pill that will cure the disease?!?!
I'd do it, but once I'm no longer of sound mind, I'd want the yellow pill ...

[Don]

I would want to know. If only to make some decisions for family, before hand.

I agree with you. I would want to know also. So many people spend money getting misdiagnosed because they start off thinking something else is wrong with them. Just get an inside track with this so at least your regular doctor will have an idea later when he's treating you for strange symptoms.

[Ehwmatt]

Knock on wood, we have been fortunate not to experience this terrible disease or any other form of severe dementia in my family on either side just yet... although on my paternal side, no male has made it past 70 because of hereditary heart disease, so that might play in.

This is probably one disease that scares me more than most others - I can't imagine one of my loved ones not even knowing me, or for that matter, me someday putting my own loved ones through that by not even knowing them. I'd rather be put out.

Even if I'm in severe pain from cancer or something like that some day, at least I'll be able to say goodbye and know who I'm saying it to.

[Don]

The Long Goodbye.
Being dead but not really dead.
Dealing with a person in a coma is one thing but with this disease, there is always the empty moments of small reprieve. Those times when things become clear for the patient and the family is given that false hope only to have it snatched away again in a matter of seconds as the fog returns.

[Deb]

The Long Goodbye.
Being dead but not really dead.
Dealing with a person in a coma is one thing but with this disease, there is always the empty moments of small reprieve. Those times when things become clear for the patient and the family is given that false hope only to have it snatched away again in a matter of seconds as the fog returns.

Too true. My granpa on my dad's side had some form of old age dementia near the end. He was 94, and he could remember stuff from 60+ years ago but not recall who we were most of the time. Half the time he thought he was back on the farm from when he was a teen. Physically, pretty good condition.....I guess his body just outlived his brain. And to see my prideful/stubborn little squarehead (german ) granpa in diapers and completely frustrated with his memory......just broke my heart. Especially hard on my dad (and mom).

[Michigan Girl]

Isn't Doc Kevorkian still alive?!?! I want him, he's a Michigan Man, too!!

[Melissa]

The Long Goodbye.
Being dead but not really dead.
Dealing with a person in a coma is one thing but with this disease, there is always the empty moments of small reprieve. Those times when things become clear for the patient and the family is given that false hope only to have it snatched away again in a matter of seconds as the fog returns.

Reminds me of that part in "The Notebook" when she recognizes her husband and remembers for just a few minutes, then falls right back into not knowing him, so sad.

[RPM]

My family and I are going thru this right now, mom is only 66, totally heartbreaking, I would want to know,
so far she knows everyone, but everything must be done for her. my father died suddenly at 60, at this time
i would choose that......

Ray

[Voyager]

If Ronald Reagan would have known he was going to get Alzheimer's, he may have never become President.

What does it matter? If you can't cure it, what good would it do to know about it? So you can off yourself before it progresses too much?

[Saint John]

So you can off yourself before it progresses too much?

No ... so I can off other people before I forget how much I fucking hate them.

[scarab]

f someone can invent a pill to diagnose a disease that might possibly be contracted in the future
and even go so far as to inform us of the severity and rate of progression of said disease, why
can't they just invent a pill that will cure the disease?!?!
I'd do it, but once I'm no longer of sound mind, I'd want the yellow pill ... Wink



No money is made in curing diseases, i know. I worked 10 years for a pharma company that was working on curing cancer.
We made great strides, only to be told that no money can be made.

Name one drug that cures an illness?
Pharma companies cant even cure the cold.

[Voyager]

I just took a pill and found out I am going to die someday. Fuck!!

Now I'm depressed. Give me a beer.

[Michigan Girl]

if someone can invent a pill to diagnose a disease that might possibly be contracted in the future
and even go so far as to inform us of the severity and rate of progression of said disease, why
can't they just invent a pill that will cure the disease?!?!
I'd do it, but once I'm no longer of sound mind, I'd want the yellow pill ... Wink

No money is made in curing diseases, i know. I worked 10 years for a pharma company that was working on curing cancer.
We made great strides, only to be told that no money can be made.

Name one drug that cures an illness?
Pharma companies cant even cure the cold.

Geez, I don't know!! Is there one?!?
This just pisses me off, I've always heard this ^^^^!! Why do we continue to donate/raise $$$$ for these causes?!?


LingMAO @SJ ...

[parfait]

f someone can invent a pill to diagnose a disease that might possibly be contracted in the future
and even go so far as to inform us of the severity and rate of progression of said disease, why
can't they just invent a pill that will cure the disease?!?!
I'd do it, but once I'm no longer of sound mind, I'd want the yellow pill ... Wink



No money is made in curing diseases, i know. I worked 10 years for a pharma company that was working on curing cancer.
We made great strides, only to be told that no money can be made.

Name one drug that cures an illness?
Pharma companies cant even cure the cold.

You need to lay off the crack. Pharma companies can't cure the cold since it's caused by virus, dr. House. I'd love to see how hardcore anti-drug you would be if you got cancer; chemotherapy is drugs you know - produced by the evil pharmaceutical companies. Sanofi-Aventis produces and sells docetaxel, which to this day have saved thousands of women with breast cancer, as well as both ovarian and non-small lung cancer.

Moron.

[SusieP]

Our jazz Duo have been doing some afternoon shows at our local Hospice and a few Retirement Homes - not for money, but, you know, to give a bit back to the community and give the elderly and sick folks a bit of nice music to brighten their long days.

And you know what, it's really tough to see the ones with Alzheimers.
Some of them are the parents of people I went to school with, and they have no idea who they are or where they are or what's happening.

It breaks your heart to see them.

But the music still seems to reach them.



Regarding the question -
I think I'd want to know.