"Back when Alzheimer's disease was first identified by Alois Alzheimer, he noted that in addition to the plaques and tau buildup, there was also a buildup of fat droplets in brain cells. Since that time, little effort has been made to determine whether they might be the cause of the disease."

I'm not medical researcher but I find this statement incredible. It's over 120 years since Alzheimer did this work. Why the fuck is it just becoming a big deal now? Surely this info was in the literature back then so why was it ignored and not followed up decades ago?

With Alzheimer's we've witnessed over many decades seemingly any number research leads that have gotten nowhere and have ended up as dead ends yet it's only now that we're following up an ancient lead that should have been researched many decades ago.

As a lay onlooker, such revelations only further shake my faith in medical research. Every week there are many high profile PR announcements and research papers with the promise of major medical breakthroughs yet the vast percentage come to naught, or what's reported is such a miniscule incremental step towards actual medical treatment that an effective treatment might not be realized for decades, if at all.

Why is medical research allowed to be hyped like this? Much of the reason why the public's faith and trust in science is at an all-time low is the undeliverable hype from medical research. After decades of hyped promises about cures and treatments which aren't delivered or that fall short of the promise people no longer believe or researchers. People are just fed up with promises that aren't delivered.

It's not only research into Alzheimer's that the public feels as having fallen short, it's almost the full gamut. Take cancer research for instance, it's been grossly over hyped for many decades.

Let me explain:

I recall as a child in the 195Os before starting school, my mother took me to a movie matinee, there was a main feature and newsreels. I clearly remember two of the newsreel stories, one was on rockets and warfare and the other about cancer research. After the matinee I ask my mother about cancer and so as not to worry me she said "it's a rare disease you'll never have to worry about."

A couple of years later when I was about 7 or 8, we were on holidays at my grandmother's place and I saw that her next-door neighbor was quite ill and my grandmother told me she was dying of cancer. That's when I found out my mother had lied to me, and even at that age I was shocked and upset that she'd done so.

I've always remembered those incidents so ever since I've taken note of articles and reports about cancer in newspapers, popular science mags such as SciAm, New Scientist, and in professional journals such as Science and Nature, etc., and whilst I've not taken count, there has been many thousands of them over those many decades. Almost every one of these reports has made claims about 'promising research' or a 'possible cure' for cancer.

Let's look at the facts, the vast majority of those reports and research papers has come to naught! As a guesstimate, I'd reckon that if the research in 0.1% of them had actually been positive and even partially successful and led to actual treatment that was effective then cancer would either be cured by now or at least a very manageable disease. Well, as we all know, that hasn't happened by a long measure. Yes, some progress has been made but it's a drop in the ocean, as about one third of the population still dies of cancer. No matter how one massages the stats that's not success.

Fact is, whether it's cancer, Alzheimer's, drug research or other medical research, there's a never ending stream of reports that promise much, much more than they ever deliver.

Another form of disingenuous hype in PR releases and medical research papers is that the title and abstract are often over hyped. Words like 'significant' or 'large improvements' are used when referring to some procedure or outcome. A full reading of the text shows the actual figure as low as 5% or so. In my opinion that verges on scientific fraud. It won't fool any researcher who reads the paper but it will a newspaper editor who only reads the title and abstract (he/she likely won't understand the body text anyway). Right, the hype goes straight through to and misleads the public.

It's time the medical industry
took away the rose-colored glasses and stopped the hype and bullshit about medical research. It's time medical researchers stopped publishing for the sake of it, or for career advancement, or to obtain increased funding.

Publishing substandard research or research that's going to end up a dead end, or can't result in treatments for decades is not only unethical but it's unfair on those who are ill, it gives false hopes that come to nothing.

Finally, the quote above backs up what many of us lay people have thought for decades, which is that much medical research is either uncoordinated and or badly misdirected.