[ExI] The tedium

[John Clark]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2026 at 5:23 AM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

*> Have you heard that 75% of all so-called sporadic Alzheimer's disease is
> actually caused by mutations in just one gene (and it's not amyloid)? It's
> ApoE. That's an amazing development,*
>

*I agree it is amazing, and encouraging.  *


> *> really puts into perspective how misguided most AD research was in the
> past 50 years.*
>

*I think it'**s a little unfair to call it misguided. Much of the research
involved the study of brain plaque, and nobody is going to understand
Alzheimer's disease if they don't understand plaque. Cholesterol is vital
for insulating nerves and APOE, or rather the protein that APOE
produces, moves cholesterol to where it's needed for nerve repair, and it's
also responsible for removing defective Amyloid-beta proteins out of the
brain.*

*We've very recently learned that certain alleles of APOE produce a protein
that is not as effective at binding with this waste junk and then getting
it out of the brain as it should be, so amyloid plaque builds up, and then
it's much more likely, but still not certain, that the symptoms of
Alzheimer's disease will start to show up in behavior. *

*John K Clark  *


>
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