Recent articles on Alzheimer’s and brain health provide fodder for explaining my posting philosophy, as well as suggest a refinement for this blog. By far the most alerts I receive relate to the hope for some new drug, based largely on conjecture and/or tests on animals. I don’t pass on any these “hopeful” solutions, despite my tag line “Hope for Alzheimer’s.” Here’s why.
“Exercise isn’t patentable,” has been the guide for this blog, to provide a voice to hopeful brain health solutions that will not benefit from the marketing muscle and press releases of drug companies. The marketing budget of a drug corporation like Pfizer surpasses the R&D budget. This is not to dismiss all drugs, but the hope from a miracle drug for Alzheimer’s will need no help from any or all bloggers to get the word out.
Yet those inflated marketing budgets are not applied towards getting out bad news about medications (surprise, surprise). Thus when something like the bad news of donepezil (Aricept) came out, I might make a difference in making this known to the public. I realize this throws a wet blanket on hope.
To be frank, hope sometimes can be devastating. When I learned a couple years ago that Celiac’s Disease and gluten sensitivity could explain some of her symptoms, I was full of hope. Cindy’s family has a history of this disease and the treatment is simply a change in diet. Finding out she had no gluten sensitivity after all was my lowest moment during this whole journey. This downside of having hope crushed gives me extra incentive not to report on drug tests involving mice.
I even refrained recently from reporting on the “good news” about beer being regurgitated and going viral. Turns out that hops reverse brain damage in mice. This leads to headlines such as “beer may prevent Alzheimer’s.” Um, no, I like my beer but that’s not likely. Even if hops has the same impact on the human brain (a big if), in beer it is packaged with a drug called alcohol. Yes, a little bit of red wine has been shown to promote health … in humans of all things! Whether just a little bit of beer can provide enough benefit from hops specifically for the human brain without the damage from alcohol remains to be seen.
On the other hand, I recently shared an article about the harmful effects of high temperature cooking, despite this being derived from another “mice” study. In this case the article provides good information on high temperature cooking regardless of whether the consequences transfer to humans.
Cindy’s journey has been inspirational and hopeful for others with Alzheimer’s pursuing their dreams, yet overall my mission is more about pursuing a high quality of life in the face of Alzheimer’s, for both patient and caregiver. Hope is part of that, but so is knowing the practical realities faced with this dreaded disease.
