Xueba's life simulator

Chapter 219 Recommendations
"You can go on and on about Alzheimer's now."

After the family had dinner, Zhou Ming's grandfather took advantage of Zhou Ming's grandma not paying attention, dragged Zhou Ming to an empty room, and said to Zhou Ming.

Now that Zhou Ming knew about this matter, Zhou Ming's grandfather naturally wanted to know more about the disease from Zhou Ming's case.

"Judging from the current research alone, Alzheimer's disease is caused by a variety of factors. The factors mentioned here include biological and social psychological factors, so you usually chat with grandma more, This can also appropriately slow down the aggravation of the disease.

I asked about the situation of the elders in my grandma's family earlier because the disease is also related to family history.

And in addition, it may also be related to gender, head trauma, low education level, thyroid disease, high or low maternal age, viral infection and many other conditions. "

Zhou Ming and his grandfather explained that what he said now are some possible factors and hypotheses about Alzheimer's disease in the scientific research of today's society.

As for β-amyloid precipitation, Zhou Ming didn't tell his grandfather about it. After all, these are too professional things, and his grandfather wouldn't understand them.

"So, besides chatting with your grandma, is there anything else we can do? Do we need to take the medicine we brought back from the hospital?"

Zhou Ming's grandfather also asked Zhou Ming with concern.

"There are also many aspects such as diet, exercise, and strengthening thinking skills that need attention.

In terms of diet, try to eat a low-carb diet and eat more meat.

For exercise, you can usually go out with grandma more, and let her listen to music or opera.

In terms of social interaction, she can also get to know more people. Don’t just chat with family members, she can also play board games, or play cards, etc., to enhance her thinking training.

Actually, I think you can move to Luzhou, where the medical situation is much better than here, and I can have more time to know the changes in grandma's condition, so that I can prepare for some things in the future.

With grandma over there, you can also meet some new friends, which will help slow down the aggravation of the disease. "

Zhou Ming explained to his grandfather that Zhou Ming didn't tell his grandfather too much about the reasons for doing these things.

The reason why you should pay attention to your diet is that at present, there are two commonly accepted hypotheses in the cause of Alzheimer's disease, namely amyloid beta protein deposition and abnormal glucose metabolism in the brain caused by insulin resistance.

The view of β-amyloid precipitation is that some wrong proteins will accumulate and squeeze brain cells in the brain, causing the brain to shrink and brain function to degenerate, causing patients to have more serious cognitive impairment.

The abnormal glucose metabolism in the brain caused by insulin resistance is because in early Alzheimer's disease, the decline in glucose metabolism and impaired energy metabolism of nerve cells may be related to the impairment of insulin signaling pathways.

Once insulin signaling is impaired, it will inevitably lead to cognitive dysfunction.

In addition, insulin is not only an important hormone that regulates blood sugar and energy metabolism, but also a neurotrophic factor that participates in cell survival, learning and memory formation, and inhibits cell apoptosis.

A low-carb diet can prevent "insulin resistance", effectively reduce body inflammation caused by high-carb water, and rich fat intake can also produce ketone bodies, which can provide "clean energy" for the brain.

In addition, fat can also maintain brain cells, protect neurons, and supplement dietary choline.

It can be said that diet is very important to prevent Alzheimer's disease.

Regular aerobic exercise can increase the brain's memory. Listening to more music can increase cognition, improve people's mental focus, relieve stress, and actively socialize can also prevent memory loss.

As for insisting on thinking training, it can also keep the brain healthy.

Speaking of β-amyloid precipitation, a few years later, a related experiment on this hypothesis will be exploded and the paper will be suspected of being falsified.

Nevertheless, for Zhou Ming, who has the knowledge of later generations, he knows that Alzheimer's disease is indeed somewhat related to β-amyloid protein deposition.

Moreover, with the development of subsequent technologies, brain scientists continue to study Alzheimer's disease, and it is also found that Alzheimer's disease is also related to the formation of acetylcholine, a substance necessary for choline, which is a neurotransmitter; It is related to the inflammatory gene ApoE4; it is related to the immune inflammatory response and apoptosis.

However, whether it is β-amyloid protein precipitation, abnormal glucose metabolism in the brain caused by insulin resistance, or the immune inflammatory response, cholinergic nerve damage and cell apoptosis that were discovered later, these are not the most important.

In fact, the main cause of Alzheimer's disease is aging.

To put it simply, the main source of Alzheimer's pathogenesis is organ aging caused by natural aging.

Studying other factors can at best prevent, or slow down the progression of Alzheimer's disease to a certain extent.

Wanting to cure a patient who has entered severe Alzheimer's disease is like rejuvenating, even Zhou Ming, who has relevant biological knowledge for the next few decades, does not know how to do it.

At least according to the future knowledge in Zhou Ming's mind, the main cause of Alzheimer's disease is gene expression and human aging.

Is human aging reversible?

At least according to Zhou Ming's knowledge, human aging is temporarily irreversible.

Although there is still no way to cure patients with severe Alzheimer's disease in the future, the relevant research and theoretical basis are much more complete than now, and scholars who study brain science have a better understanding of Alzheimer's disease. It's clearer now.

And more importantly, in a previous life simulator, as brain-computer interface technology became more and more developed, many experts studying Alzheimer's disease could even "enter" the minds of patients to understand their world. , in order to better study the disease.

In addition, at that time, including artificial intelligence technology, various technologies were much more advanced than now, even patients with severe Alzheimer's disease did not suffer as much as they do now.

However, having said so much, even in the life simulator that Zhou Ming has used so many times, in the most technologically advanced future, it is impossible to cure patients with severe Alzheimer's disease.

This is like aging, once you get it, it is impossible to reverse it, unless you can research artificial organs that replace related cells and brain tissues, or medical nanomaterials, directly repair or replace the function decline caused by aging in the brain, or Direct damage to brain cells and brain tissue.

Or, they have developed the consciousness uploading technology, which directly uploads consciousness to electronic devices before suffering from Alzheimer's, so as to get rid of the shackles of the body and achieve mechanical ascension.

However, for these, it still only exists in the world of science fiction.

And if the consciousness uploading technology can really be researched, then people's research on the human brain and consciousness must have reached a pinnacle at that time. Zhou Ming estimates that people may not even get Alzheimer's by then. sick.

After hearing what Zhou Ming said, Zhou Ming's grandfather nodded first, and began to think seriously about Zhou Ming's suggestion.

They were reluctant to leave here before because this is the place where they have lived for decades, and they have long been familiar with every plant and tree here.

The neighbors around have also known each other for decades, and they have feelings for everything here, so naturally they don't want to move out when they get old.

Chinese people always say that "a tree is as tall as a thousand feet, and the leaves fall back to the roots". No matter how tall the tree grows, the fallen leaves still have to return to the roots.

And those who have been away from their hometown for a long time will eventually want to return to their hometown, let alone old people like Zhou Ming's grandparents who have lived in their hometown all their lives.

However, for the sake of his wife's health, Zhou Ming's grandfather began to seriously think about taking his wife away from the place where they had lived for decades and move to the city for the first time.

"Hey, I'll find an opportunity to discuss it with your grandma later.

However, she still doesn't know about her illness, and I'm not sure if I want to persuade her to leave here and move to Luzhou.

It just so happens that you are back this time, and you will follow along to persuade..."

Zhou Ming's grandfather said to Zhou Ming, while he was talking, his eyes suddenly lost their focus, and he lost his focus because he remembered something.

"Grandpa?" Zhou Ming called out in a low voice.

"Huh? Oh, I just thought of something.

Over the years, there have been fewer and fewer people in the group.

Many people of your father's generation went out to work when they were young, and not many stayed in their hometown to farm.

After these people go out, they are away all year round, and they usually come back during the Chinese New Year.

Those who still remember the old man at home will take the old man over after making money.

And those who didn't make any money, the old people in the family stayed here all the time.

As for those who stayed at home to farm, their children have grown up now, and none of these children will stay in their hometown to farm.

In the past two years, there have been fewer and fewer elderly people here, some have passed away, and some have been picked up by their own sons or grandsons.

If we go here again, there will be fewer people in the group, and the only people in our Zhou family here are your uncle's family. "

Zhou Ming's grandfather spoke sadly to Zhou Ming of the changes in the village over the years. The group he was talking about can be said to be the smallest unit in the current administrative division of Huaguo.

According to the "Organization Law of Huaguo Villagers' Committee", a village is composed of several villager groups, and the villager groups here are the groups that Zhou Ming's grandfather mentioned.

"If you miss Uncle and the others, you can ask Uncle and his family to move to Luzhou as well.

Anyway, after Zhou Rui finished the college entrance examination this year, he should also go to Luzhou to go to school, and he will go to university soon. "

Zhou Ming said to his grandfather.

After chatting with grandpa again, Zhou Ming walked to the door, took out his mobile phone, and started making calls.

The research on Alzheimer's disease is also mentioned in Zhou Ming's 2017 research and development plan for the future biotechnology company. Drug.

In the original plan, this research will be developed from theory to drug, and it will probably not be completed until September or October this year.

After that, it will enter the preclinical research stage of the drug.

And it may take several years for the research results of future biotechnology companies to actually be put into the market.

Zhou Ming made this call now because he wanted to advance the theoretical research on pre-Alzheimer's disease drugs.

In this way, when the first batch of the drug is produced, although clinical research will still be carried out, it will be several months earlier than the previous plan made by Zhou Ming.

And for Zhou Ming who knows the results, he can directly give his grandma the drug during the clinical research at that time, trying to simulate the development of his grandma's Alzheimer's disease as much as possible.

In this way, the company will have more time to develop follow-up drugs.

During this period of time, Zhou Ming can also continue to use the life simulator to simulate, and try to obtain more knowledge about Alzheimer's disease in the future.

"Huh, why didn't you mention this when you used the life simulator so many times before?
It seems that the main reason is that when life simulators give simulated experiences, they generally only give one experience within a year. "

After Zhou Ming made a call to the company and talked about the research plan, he looked up at the sky again, thinking to himself.

Not to mention anything else, let’s just talk about the year of 2016. If you use a life simulator to look at his experience in this year, you can see a lot, such as Morningside Mathematics Award, Su Buqing Su Mathematics Award, brother The reports of Debach's conjecture, etc., are all shown as experience.

In 2017, when the first month has not yet passed, there are three experiences that can be shown: the awarding of the Cole Number Theory Award, the first prize of the Huaguo National Natural Science Award, and the proof of the Riemann Hypothesis.

The grandfather's actions were also very fast. On the second day after Zhou Ming came back, he greeted Zhou Ming and Zhou Ming's parents in advance, and brought up the move with his wife when Zhou Ming and the others were there. Things about Luzhou.

"You old man, didn't you say you didn't want to move there before? Why are you trying to persuade me now?"

Zhou Ming's grandma saw that his old man had changed his previous attitude, and talked to himself about the idea of ​​moving to Luzhou, and asked Zhou Ming's grandpa curiously.

"Didn't I see that my grandson is usually busy? He still has time to call us, and he has to come back during winter and summer vacations. I think if we can move to Luzhou, he won't have to run back and forth like this. ?”

Zhou Ming's grandfather explained to Zhou Ming's grandmother.

In fact, this explanation is not very reliable, but Zhou Ming's grandma didn't have any loopholes in the reason to go to Zhou Ming's grandfather. On the contrary, Zhou Ming's grandfather said unexpectedly: "There are fewer and fewer people here. Even you old man said it was time to move to the city.

All right, let's move over there. "

Grandma Zhou Ming's reaction not only exceeded Zhou Ming's grandfather's expectation, but also surprised Zhou Ming and his parents.

Seeing the surprised expressions on the faces of the others, Zhou Ming's grandmother also said to them: "Didn't I think that if Xiao Shen's grandma was brought over, wouldn't it be great to live in our countryside?
It would be better if we moved to the city. "

(End of this chapter)