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Is Alzheimer's Reversible? Getting to the Root Causes - Podcast

Shoutout to Minnesotastockdude on Stocktwits for posting the podcast

Podcast Overview

Dr. Mark Hyman and Dr. Dale Bredesen, experts in functional medicine, discuss root causes of Alzheimer's. According to them, the cause of Alzheimer's is extremely individualistic and is a culmination of many years worth of toxic buildup. Examples of root causes include vitamin deficiency, leaky gut, incompatible microbiota, heavy metal toxicity, oral bacterial encroachment, herpes, molds in the sinus, and more. All of these root causes route towards a similar pathology in all Alzheimer's patients, including plaque formation (which may be our brains trying to fight off these toxins), inflammation, and catastrophic cellular failure/brain matter deterioration.

Summation

Dr. Bredesen states Alzheimer's is insufficient signaling in regards to mediation of neuroplasticity, plasticity being the new connections within our brains which help us learn and grow. Plasticity keeps our brains malleable and healthy.

He mentions a list of individualistic root causes for Alzheimer's. To specify oral bacteria mentioned earlier, Dr. Bradesen details P. Gingivalis's ability to breach the blood brain barrier (BBB) and wreck havoc. This is intriguing to investors because this is the target of CRTX in their late stage Alzheimer's study. I will discuss my thoughts on this more at the end.

To date, no approved drugs promote neuroplasticity and reversal in Alzheimer's. Drugs can only slow decline, but Dr. Bredesen and Dr. Hyman both explain how ketosis is a good natural way to address precursor root causes of Alzheimer's in many of their patients. He goes on to explain why sugar inhibits energy and depletes synaptic function and how virtually every Alzheimer's patient is insulin resistant. High-plant keto variant is the best for prevention he states. What he doesn't mention (yet) is how ketosis and intermittent fasting is known to promote autophagy naturally. Autophagy of course being promoted by S1R agonists like Blarcamesine.

Dr. Bredesen continues on to how we need to treat inflammation (the common theme in ALL Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Autism, ADD, etc. patients), but more importantly, address the inflammations root cause. He expresses again how there are so many root causes to Alzheimer's and we need to find out why each patient is symptomatic. Is it herpes, is it too much sugar, is it the oral bacteria, and then treat that. He has found in his patients that when he is able to discover and treat these root causes, his patients via PET confirmation are able to regrow brain matter and reverse symptoms. Notably, Blarcamesine is known to promote neurogenesis - and to my knowledge there is no other mid-late stage experimental drugs making this claim. Ultimately, functional medicine (and probably Blarcamesine) enables the brain to become healthy enough to fix itself and promote new growth again.

Furthermore, they discussed microbiome and the gut-brain axis. It turns out the BBB is more semi-permeable than what was first thought, and this is how toxins like oral bacteria, herpes, and heavy metals (known to cause ~3-5% of all Alzheimer's) are able to wreck havoc on our neural homeostasis. So to do corrupted gut bacteria make their way into our brain. Anavex has found evidence towards this in their Alzheimer's 2a study (link below).

I found it particularly intriguing when Dr. Bredesen mentions hormonal disruption as being a root cause of Alzheimer's as well. This was evidenced in a massive longitudinal study evaluating women who have had their ovaries taken out. He states the same applies to men with testosterone inconsistencies and women meeting menopause. Good hormonal therapy may be a good option in these cases.

He elaborates on our poor soil content compared to past generations and our changes in diet (sugar). He says that choline is a key deficient nutrient in many of us and it's critical to memory. Flavonoids/flavinals in very large studies are key indicators to Alzheimer's risk. People with high flavonoid concentrations have much lower risk of Alzheimer's. Flavonoids are known to reduce inflammation. They can be found in dark chocolates which have not been treated with alkali, and also heavily concentrate in blueberries. Other nutrients needed include zinc, magnesium, iodine, potassium, B vitamins, and Vitamin D.

Later in the podcast he does briefly mention fasting promoting autophagic function. He also mentions hypertension as a large risk factor for Alzheimer's - this may be addressed be Blarcamesine as has been evidenced in clinical study. He continues to state that APOE4 (statistically highest Alzheimer's population) patients tend to have cardiovascular issues.

Supporting excerpt from source below: “We note that the Sig-1R deletion induces cognitive, psychiatric, and motor dysfunctions, but also alters metabolism of heart. Finally, taken together, observations from different experiments demonstrate that those dysfunctions are correlated to poor regulation of ER and mitochondria metabolism altered by stress, which could occur with aging.”

Final Thoughts

Functional medicine, identifying individualistic root causes and addressing those needs appears to be an effective way in treating and preventing Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Bredesen and Dr. Hyman mention their use and how the vast majority of their MCI (or earlier asymptomatic cognitive decline patients) improve on PET scans if their root causes are addressed. Dr. Bredesen does mention how this approach has limited potential in mid-late stage patient populations, but even these individuals marginally improve.

The overall message of this podcast was to impress a large number of individualistic root causes of Alzheimer's and how inflammation, plaque formation, cellular failure, and brain reduction are all late-stage symptoms of other issues. The issue with this approach is not the approach itself, but our medical systems lack of analytic methodology in identifying these root causes. Because functional medicine is not widely practiced, and simple diagnostic methodologies are not currently in place, Anavex's Blarcamesine appears to be neatly poised as the stop-gap for Alzheimer's prevention and treatment.

As mentioned by Dr. Bredesen earlier, functional medicine allows the brain to be healthy enough to fix itself. Blarcamesine is proving this to be the case with its therapeutic properties in multiple clinical trials. Blarcamesine fixes homeostasis by eliminating inflammation, promoting neuroplasticity and neurogenesis, fixing signaling pathways, enabling autophagic function, and rebuilding chromatin structures. Blarcamesine has also had effect on gut microbiota, and the heart.

It is my strong belief that the most optimal outcome for prevention and treatment would be a combination or functional medicine and Blarcamesine dosing, with secondary combinations for specific individualistic root causes such as hormonal augmentation, or potentially CRTX's Atuzaginstat for P. Gingivalis remedy.

I believe CRTX has potential for decent results in their Alzheimer's study, but ultimately, Blarcamesine addresses for sweeping disfunction whereas CRTX addresses a niche need. S1R agonists like Blarcamesine and Anavex 3-71 appear to be the best catch-all medicine in development today.

If you are new I would recommend reading the sources below, especially that on autophagy and chromatin. Thanks for reading my post.

Sources:

Link to the podcast:

Gut microbiota PR: https://www.anavex.com/anavex-life-sciences-presents-new-clinical-data-identifying-gut-microbiota-biomarkers-associated-with-improved-clinical-response-in-patients-treated-with-anavex2-73-at-2019-alzheimers-a/

San Diego University & Chromatin: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/46/eaba5933

S1R affect on Chromatin structures in rats: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33095392/

Anavex PR IRT Autophagy: https://www.anavex.com/anavex-life-sciences-reports-publication-of-new-data-that-show-anavex2-73-induces-cellular-recycling-process-linked-to-the-prevention-and-treatment-of-age-associated-diseases/

Peer review on Blarcamesine and Autophagy: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4409/8/3/211/htm

Disclaimer: I have no position in CRTX