...and it will be a cold day in Hell before I use something on WebTV as a
scientific reference!

Could be. THough for Az, pretty much all common ythings like that, including
diet, seem to be ruled out. I wonder if they checked for an association with
the foods that typically are thought to be associated with diabetes?

You would, I wonder if anyone has done a study on that? Howoever you'd need
somehow to control for the effect of aging. Life expectancy is, or has been,
increasing. That alone would increase Az, in the same way that, say,
cataracts would increase if the population lived longer, simply that there
is more time to get them!

As you say, if diabetes and Az are linked then that would also increase the
amount of Az (though all I've seen recently are _many_ reports of the same
_single_study, which itself was of a very atypical population, plus the
numbers weren't actually that great, under 1,000 people IIRC. Would be
interesting to see some more larger scale studies.

Plus of course, if there is a link, as you alluded, its possible its not the
diabetes that cases Az, but some other factor, eg 'X' causes diabetes _and_
Az.  I would expect to see some definitive answers on this pretty soon,
since on one hand, if the link is as large as the reported study found, it
should show up right away, OTOH if it _is_ as clear as the study says, why
hasnt it shown up already? If there was a straightforward genetic link it
would have been proven by now. The fact it hasnt been, means it must be
slight. Something strange going on here in either case.

BTW, from what I read, the supposition was not that diabetes was a form of
Az, IIRC it was that one of the side effects of diabetes was to increase the
amount of protein (or whatever it is) that accumulates in the brain and is
thought to cause Az (again, its not actually 100% clear that the
accumulation is the cause, rather than for example, a side effect of
something else.

Bottom line, there is a sh*t load of stuff we dont know, and simplistic
headlines on WebTV repeated here by well meaning people (without even a
teeny understanding of statistics & chance) aren't equivalent to knowing
whats going on.

*shrug*  I haven't met anyone to date with Alzheimer's who also has
diabetes, either Type I or II.  My MIL is quite literally perfectly
healthy other than the fact her mind is gone (other than the TB as a
young adult, she's been hospitalized for 2 babies, a roller skating
accident & a stroke).  My grandfather had perfect blood sugars his
entire life.  He did have some heart & prostate problems, but both were
more linked to age than to anything else.  The numerous other relatives
I've known who were diagnoses had no indication of diabetes, either.

I'm yet not convinced that Alzheimer's is linked to anything else,
because we don't know what causes the onset.  Once we can find that, we
will undoubtedly find links to other things.

Beth

Thanks to the crapness of webtv, which I assume is responsible for snipping
the entire content of the message you relied to, I have no idea what you
sent to me. But as a I recall, you have never posted a reference to the
'well known' fact that Az runs in families except to say 'its on webtv'.
Thats no use to me as I dont have it, and I suspect, even if I did, that
that answer is like saying 'its on the internet'.

Also, seems to me there's a contradiction here. Given that there is
supposedly a link between Az and Diabetes, and most people on diabetes will
be taking medicine for it, then either .....if the medicine fixes Az, there
_wouldnt_ be a high association between the two (since the medicine would
prevent Az), or if the medicine didnt fix Az, the link would show up but you
wouldnt be able to say the medicine was responsible for your 6 year slowness
in decline*. Would seem unlikely to have both, eg medicine that prevents Az
_and_ higher incidence of Az.

*Not to mention the fact you may not even have Az, the only sure way of
knowing is an autopsy. There are many other diseases and conditions that
have similar symptoms. Not to mention the fact that people can have a slow
decline, everyone is different. Maybe some other people with a 6 year slow
decline go swimming every day or have a garlic tablet or do the crossword or
take neem oil. Maybe they are responsible?