Just Say No to This Test
Big Pharma is working on something rather insidious, even bizarre, if you know all the facts. They have devised a test for the potential onset of Alzheimer’s Dementia. It is new, completely unproven, and not yet available from your doctor, but Pharma says it’s a modern miracle, like the stool tests for early detection of colon cancer. Except it isn’t.
What it tests for is the presence of two substances that have shown connection to AD, amyloid beta, and another substance called tau. In autopsies, a buildup of amyloid beta plaque, and a tangled web of tau, simply called tau tangles, are regularly found in Alzheimer’s patients and are part of the diagnosis, which at this time can only be confirmed at autopsy.
HOWEVER, as I’ve previously written, these are, a- only two of (so far) 26 conditions concomitant to Alzheimer’s and b- not even remotely proven, again at this time, to be causative nor definitive. So getting this information, while causing tremendous stress possibly leading to other health issues, gives you no more in the way of action items than I, and Dr. Bredersen, have already given you. So there’s absolutely no upside to this test, if and when your doctor suggests it.
** The DOWNSIDE, which I simply cannot understate, is the potential for the curbing of your rights, if this test comes back positive!
If you have a stroke, your driving privileges will be suspended. If you test positive for AD precursors, the same could happen, even though you’ve shown no symptoms and my not actually manifest AD. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were some legislation introduced to demand some sort of stewardship or conservatorship over you, should the test indicate you might be losing it, even though you likely will have no need for it. At this point there is zero evidence that a positive result is even moderately probative, let alone definitively diagnostic. Next up, your doctor will undoubtedly have some drugs to prescribe, likely manufactured by the same company that created the test, and none of which, (if you’ve read Bredersen’s The End of Alzheimer’s) will do anything to slow the progress of the disease if you actually even have it.
This test is a solution in search of a problem, as well as a cash run.