Letters to the Editor

12 July 2023

Cognitive function in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: a risk assessment

Chen et al. conducted a prospective study to investigate the association between type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) status and cognitive function among middle-aged and older adults [1]. Although T2DM was not significantly associated with overall cognitive function, a significant association between glycemic status and overall cognitive function in patients with untreated T2DM. The authors concluded that screening and early treatment for T2DM were important for keeping better cognitive function in later life. I have some comments about the study.

9 July 2023

The Amyloid Hypothesis: The Greatest Invention or the Biggest Blunder in Biomedical Science Ever?

Understanding and treatment of disease go hand in hand. Despite decades of research efforts in academia and the drug industry, and hundreds of clinical trial studies, we have no treatment, and no prevention for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Why is that? The short answer is that we do not understand AD, its origin and disease mechanisms.

26 April 2023

Is there a clinically meaningful association between psoriasis and dementia?

Zingel et al. reported an association between psoriasis and dementia and concluded that patients with psoriasis should be advised about the relationship between psoriasis and the development of dementia [1]. With a sample size of over 20,000 patients and over 175,000 patient-years of follow up, the study had considerable power for detecting small differences in relative risk. They found that psoriasis was associated with a statistically significant 1.2-fold higher risk of developing dementia.

11 December 2022

Is Alzheimer’s Disease by Any Other Name Still Alzheimer’s Disease?

On November 1-2, 2022, PubMed listed over 190,000 entries for the search term “Alzheimer’s disease” (AD), with over 13,600 entries for 2022 alone [1], suggesting that this topic is highly researched by academics within the biomedical research community. In this letter, the topic of ‘tortured phrases’ [2], as applies to the term “Alzheimer’s disease”, is explored. Ultimately, the question is asked, if other terms are used to describe AD, would it still be recognized as such?

19 January 2022

Response to the commentary “The Use of Standardized Diesel Exhaust Particles in Alzheimer’s Disease Research” by Block and Kodavanti

In their commentary on the suitability of the use of standardized diesel exhaust particles (DEP) for studying the adverse effects attributed to particulate matter (PM), Block and Kodavanti [1] refer to our recent publication by Farahani et al. [2] in which we offered experimental evidence on the dissimilarities in chemical composition of these DEP to ambient PM to which populations are exposed. The specific DEP is diesel soot emitted by a forklift engine (NIST SRM 2975). Parenthetically, we are not the first study to demonstrate this observation. For instance, Braun et al.

23 March 2021

The Relationship Between Infections and Alzheimer’s Disease Is Modified by Vitamin D Status

A forthcoming article in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease reported that having a burden of infectious disease was associated with a small increase in the risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) (OR, 1.05; 95% CI, 1.02 to 1.08) [1]. They found significantly increased associations for bacterial infections but not viral infections. A reasonable question is whether the associations are caused by the infection or are, perhaps, related to an underlying factor that is a risk for both the infections and AD. The underlying factor considered here is vitamin D status.

26 October 2020

A Role for Mycobacterium in Alzheimer’s Disease?

We looked forward to Lowry’s “Alzheimer's disease: protective effects of Mycobacterium vaccae, a soil-derived mycobacterium with anti-inflammatory and anti-tubercular properties, on the proteomic profiles of plasma and cerebrospinal fluid in rats” publication in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease [1] as an often-overlooked possibility towards Alzheimer’s disease (AD) genesis.

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