Optimism For Treating Cancer and Alzheimers in the Future

I say this quite often, and I’ll say it here again, reading about politics is a sure way to make one cynical.  It does for me at least.  However, reading about some of the amazing research occurring at our universities and new treatments being developed by businesses gives me great optimism.     

I think about chronic disease more than most people in their thirties.  This is largely because most of our firm’s clients are over age 55 and, of-course, many ailments become more prevalent with age.  Therefore, I’m always interested in the latest research and progress being made tackling these huge health-care challenges.

I want to share several links to stories or articles that I found incredibly interesting relating to the treatment of cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.  

The first set of articles relates mainly to treating cancer with immuno-therapy.  Immuno-therapy, as I understand it, is a process in which genetically modified viruses are actually administered, by different means, into a person to switch the human body’s immune system on to destroy cancer cells.  I’ve read about experiments where researchers have effectively treated cancer with the polio and HIV virus each respectively.  It is truly fascinating and seems to hold a lot of potential:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/polio-cancer-treatment-duke-university-60-minutes-scott-pelley/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2014/05/07/is-this-how-well-cure-cancer/

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-future-of-cancer-closer-to-a-cure-1430104229

This second set of links relates to the battle against Alzheimer’s disease.  The first article discusses research occurring in South America where a population has been identified that seems to be genetically predisposed to early-onset Alzheimers.  A drug study is underway testing one long-held theory of what causes Alzheimers.  The Fortune article discusses a drug trial currently underway by the large bio-tech company Biogen.  A drug the company is currently testing has shown promising early results.  The company recently jumped from Phase 1 to Phase 3 testing.  The last link below is an article I mentioned and linked to previously.  I’m re-linking it here because it is relevant and was so good!

http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-battle-against-alzheimers-heres-ground-zero-1430127182

http://fortune.com/2015/04/23/alzheimers-drug-research/

http://www.wsj.com/articles/our-amazingly-plastic-brains-1423262095

Please note, if the links to the Wall Street Journal articles don’t work because you need a subscription, type the article title into Google (for example, “The Future of Cancer Closer to a Cure”).  You should be able to get to the article that way.