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1298 points jgrahamc | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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meowface ◴[] No.22879621[source]
So sad and bleak to read.

Are there any remotely promising paths to treating or preventing neurodegenerative diseases like these in the future? Or at least to slow down the progression? Are there any experimental drugs? Will we likely just need to wait until targeted in vivo genetic engineering is understood and mastered?

I know those are broad questions, but suffering from something like dementia, Alzheimer's, or Parkinson's, or having a loved one suffer from it, seems like one of the cruelest fates imaginable. The helplessness of the doctor saying there's basically nothing you can do other than to try to eat healthy and exercise... If I was given such a diagnosis while still lucid, I think I would want to try every experimental treatment available, if any exist. I'd accept almost any risk over that horrifying, inevitable outcome.

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antonzabirko ◴[] No.22879668[source]
A cocktail of neural herbals, exercise, meditation, extra therapy - I hope he got all these early on.
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1. meowface ◴[] No.22879865[source]
That's basically what the doctor said, though. I personally doubt those slow it down very much. I also think the science is still so poorly understood that certain supplements or foods could potentially even worsen things. (Just to throw out a totally made up scenario, maybe some compound found in some plant, and its metabolites, cause a small increase in monoamine release. This may be perceived as a mild stimulating effect in healthy people, but could hypothetically potentially speed up some feedback loop which leads to faster neuron death in people with certain neurodegenerative diseases.)

Exercise and healthy eating is probably still a good idea, but basically it just seems like hoping for the best without real knowledge of what may or may not be helping or hurting.