Posted 2 months from Christmas, 2023 (Yippee Ki Yay!!)
A fortune made by a lying tongue is a fleeting vapor and a deadly snare. Prov 26:6
Just a head’s up. I get a lot about dementia in my inbox for various reasons. There is a lot of good stuff that I share with my support group and everyone I have in my email list. 🙂 There is also a lot of over-promising stuff and some, downright snake oil. An example below is typical. I am not sure how to characterize it yet, but there are more red flags waving here than at a Chinese military parade. This one is about a natural treatment called CranioSacral Therapy (CST). It may be useful for many things…who knows? I am not an expert on everything, nor do I claim to be. At best I am solid on dementia, on baseball trivia, and on the finer points of power sleeping. 😉 Again, I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but I do know from 5 years of intense study and hope that I am wrong, that once you pass the tipping point of dementia, it is progressive and irreversible. There is no such thing as full neurogenesis (brain regrowth). There are things the body does to try to work around a TBI or similar…I get that…but reversing dementia, as of today, is not possible for the richest people in the world, so it is not possible for us common folk either.
Here is the email (again…not trying to trash them…I know little about their topic..it may be dandy) :
———- Forwarded message ———
From: Michael
Date: Wed, Oct 25, 2023 at 9:00 AM
Subject: Reminder! Join me on October 25th for an informative webinar – How to Prevent and Reverse Alzheimer’s
To: Mark <mark.applegate@senioragemo.org>
| Hello Mark! Here’s your last chance to register for tonight’s webinar! Following up on the favorable response to last week’s post-summit webinar and your questions about our CranioSacral mini -intensive programs, we wanted to offer one additional webinar entitled How to Prevent and Reverse Alzheimer’s. The webinar will be held on XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX . We think it’s the perfect time to think about planning for the next year before the holidays are upon us. You can click here to register: (I removed the link) You will be provided with the Zoom link after registering. We’re going to give you even more background into how we feel CranioSacral Therapy (CST) is the ‘missing piece’ in approaching prevention and reversal of Alzheimer’s disease. In this 90 minute webinar you’ll learn the most efficient and powerful ways to prevent and reverse Alzheimer’s disease and what works best for you. Understand the new paradigm of healthcare. Understand how and why CranioSacral Therapy is called the ‘missing piece’ in the approach to Alzheimer’s Disease. Develop a well-being plan for 2024. I look forward to seeing you and helping you develop some simple and practical steps to support your wellbeing. P.S. If you’ve already registered for the Tuesday evening webinar, don’t worry we’ve got you covered! Either one will cover the same basic information! All the best (Author’s name with many credentials) CranioSacral Longevity Expert and Author of Prevent Alzheimer’s in Just 10 minutes a Day |
Enter what I am calling the Bruce Willis test.
I love Bruce Willis. He is absolutely one of my favorite actors. He is tough, funny, and just downright cool. I HATE that he is struggling mightily with this terrible disease. He is yet another reason why I care, why I have been in dozens of clinical trials and studies getting poked, prodded, punctured, and quizzed! If you hadn’t heard somehow, he has Frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Here is the foundation for this: LINK Here is a wonderful interview from his bride: LINK.
Bruce Willis, through his amazing career, is rightly probably worth hundreds of millions of dollars and, therefore, almost certainly has access to anyone on Earth for treatment/research and care. Sadly he is still declining 🙁 The disease cares not the economic status, job, race, sexual orientation, geography, and any other category. It just hits… and hurts. 🙁 ‘
Once it is possible someday to reverse this disease, Bruce Willis’ family (and we) will know about it (!!!) and be celebrating!!! I will first, likely, be back in Washington DC picketing again fighting that it be covered by Medicare. 😉 If a webinar, a conference, a speaker, a book, etc…regardless of their numerous credentials, says they have a cure or a way to reverse the disease, please be HIGHLY skeptical and expect that there will be someone selling vitamins, supplements, treatments, etc…that will not be covered by insurance. Many of these are preying on the vulnerable. I am not sure about this one in the email, but we can tell by reading the description that there are oodles of bright red flags and warning sirens everywhere. Note the keywords/flags here:
- Learn the most efficient and powerful ways (wait…WAYS??? MORE THAN ONE?) to prevent (prevention, for many, can be a possibility through doing stuff that is good for the heart and therefore the brain…a list of many good things we talk about in support group…eat right, exercise, watch your BP, watch the blood sugar, watch stress, sleep enough, protect your noggin, etc…) and reverse Alzheimer’s disease and what works best for you. (Tire screeching sound)
- New (Always needs to sound fresh and innovative and make you feel like you have just missed it before.)
- “Missing piece”
- Book title: Prevent Alzheimer’s in Just 10 minutes a Day (I love the thought, but it will take more time than 10 minutes per day. Exercise alone needs to be 20 minutes several days per week.)
My point here: I want a cure as much as anyone. I want to reverse it as much as anyone. I really do. 🙁 I hate this disease…and I don’t actively hate many things in life. However, we have to be very skeptical. Some snake oil salesmen bilk people out of thousands of dollars (or more) with lofty promises, pretty offices and kind words.
Be careful…If you see these, forward them to my email at mark.applegate@senioragemo.org and I will attend and report back to the group. Am I automatically trashing natural therapies/supplements/stuff like this email? Nope…but I am hyper-skeptical and will always remember to put it through the “Bruce Willis test.” If this drug/treatment reverses it, don’t you think his wife, kids, Demi Moore, or his agent wouldn’t have him getting fixed and shouting it from the rooftops? Of course they would… Use all of your senses…even your 6th one. It just makes sense…
First, Pray for Bruce Willis and his family and even his fans. He is flawed like the rest of us, but was a wonderful actor and is still advocating for an end to FTD with his family. In one of my favorite of his movies, Armageddon, Harry (played by Bruce) said ““Houston, you have a problem. You see, I promised my little girl that I’d be comin’ home. Now I don’t know what you people are doing down there, but we’ve got a hole to dig up here!”
Friends, we have a hole to dig here too in finding a real cure, if you will, and we don’t need snake oil, of any sort, slowing us down. When a cure is found, high profile, like Bruce, will also make it ovbious.
#EndALZ
Update: Mom is in a great spot right now. She has been stable for at least 2 weeks now 🙂 I will know more tonight after feeding her supper. 🙂
Note: this could just as easily be called the Glen Campbell, Robin Williams, Charles Bronson, Ronald Reagan, Perry Como, Estelle Getty, Charlton Heston, Casey Kasem, Rosa Parks, Norman Rockwell, Sugar Ray Robinson, Tony Bennett, James Stewart, Pat Summitt, Dear Abby, or any number of other wonderful celebrities’ -test. 🙁
Image by masbebet christianto from Pixabay
We need to beat this thing, and do it quickly… and for real!
🙁
