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Welcome to my book:
Forget Alzheimer’s.
The truth about a disease that isn’t one.
(by: Cornelia Stolze; Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch; Cologne 2011; 4th edition)
Alzheimer’s is a subject of much public concern.
Maggie Thatcher,
Ronald Reagan or Columbo actor Peter Falk are just some
of the names bandied about when the media mentions the new, widespread disease
that some 26 million people the world over are already supposedly suffering from.
In 2050 the figures are predicted to triple. Television channels
are already warning
about the "ticking time bomb for our aging society”.
Magazines report that the spread of the disease
has reached the magnitude
of a global epidemic.
They claim that this is a medical condition that will impoverish entire countries
and that threatens to paralyse healthcare systems.
But as incredible as it sounds,
Alzheimer’s is not comparable with tuberculosis or cancer.
Until today nobody really knows what
Alzheimer’s is. Nobody has ever clearly
defined the disease nor proven its existence. Top experts are also unable
to diagnose it directly, even when a patient already has severe dementia.
Diagnosis is based on a
process of exclusion. If doctors find nothing to explain
why patients are confused, forgetful or disorientated,
they presume it has to be Alzheimer’s.
But dementia comes in many different forms.
The symptoms can be caused by a wide variety of medical conditions.
Many of these can be comparatively well treated, eradicated or prevented –
provided the cause concerned is not misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s.
This book explains how and why what was once an exotic brain syndrome
has been turned into the scourge of the century. It shows why the whole concept
of early detection and diagnosis of the alleged disease is based on feet of clay.
In this book the biologist and science journalist Cornelia Stolze shows
that Alzheimer’s is a spectre, specifically devised
to attract research funding for scientists,
to propel careers of physicians in academia into new stratospheres and
to create huge markets for medication in the pharmaceutical industry.
The strategy has paid off.
Because the fear of losing one’s mind hits the nerve of aging societies.
Business is booming as a
result. Millions of people are already
swallowing pills that are said to check the brain failing,
though it is highly questionable whether any of these drugs really help.
In fact, no
independent scientific evidence has ever been provided
to prove their benefit.
On the other hand, it is an incontrovertible fact
that many allegedly typical Alzheimer’s symptoms
are the result of inadequate diets or depression,
of poor circulation or other health problems –
or of the side effects of the increasing amount of medication
that many people take each and every day the older they get.
