The first approved drug to slow the progression of the illness will come with a strong safety warning about potentially life-threatening side effects.
In most cases, “life-threatening side effects” would be a dealbreaker for me. But if I have a mentally degenerating illness when I reach that age, I’d absolutely be in the “let’s fix it or let me die” camp. Either would be preferable to going through the motions of life while forgetting everything and everyone.
my grandfather had alzheimer’s. dying from a side effect would have been better than the last 2 years of his life
Sounds good but:
Dr. Alberto Espay, a neurologist at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, said that the 27% slowing in the progression of the illness falls below the threshold of what would be “noticeable” to a patient.
“The odds for brain swelling and hemorrhage are far higher than any actual improvement,” said Espay, who launched a petition in June calling for the Alzheimer’s treatment to not get full approval.
Well that and we’ve (as in the scientific community) been beating the drum of beta amyloid for decades with little evidence to support causation rather than correlation. In fact, there’s stronger data supporting monomers or short chains as the toxic element and that they just get big and crash out later after the damage was done.
