Mind Thief: The Story of Alzheimer's

by Han Yu

Overview

Alzheimer’s disease, a haunting and harrowing ailment, is one of the world’s most common causes of death. Alzheimer’s lingers for years, with patients’ outward appearance unaffected while their cognitive functions fade away. Patients lose the ability to work and live independently, to remember and recognize. There is still no proven way to treat Alzheimer’s because its causes remain unknown.

Mind Thief is a comprehensive and engaging history of Alzheimer’s that demystifies efforts to understand the disease. Beginning with the discovery of “presenile dementia” in the early twentieth century, Han Yu examines over a century of research and controversy. She presents the leading hypotheses for what causes Alzheimer’s; discusses each hypothesis’s tangled origins, merits, and gaps; and details their successes and failures. Yu synthesizes a vast amount of medical literature, historical studies, and media interviews, telling the gripping stories of researchers’ struggles while situating science in its historical, social, and cultural contexts. Her chronicling of the trajectory of Alzheimer’s research deftly balances rich scientific detail with attention to the wider implications. In narrating the attempts to find a treatment, Yu also offers a critical account of research and drug development and a consideration of the philosophy of aging. Wide-ranging and accessible, Mind Thief is an important book for all readers interested in the challenge of Alzheimer’s.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231552769
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	03/02/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Han Yu is a professor in the Department of English at Kansas State University, where she teaches scientific and technical communication. She is the author of The Other Kind of Funnies: Comics in Technical Communication (2015) and Communicating Genetics: Visualizations and Representations (2017).

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Lost Wives
2. Cursed Inheritance
3. Learning to Walk
4. Searching for the Alzheimer’s Gene
5. Late-Onset Alzheimer’s
6. The Paradigm
7. Eli Lilly and Mice
8. Inhibitors That Can’t Inhibit
9. Poison or Cure: An Alzheimer’s Vaccine
10. Eli Lilly’s Three Expeditions
11. Taoism and Tau Mice
12. Apples, Oysters, and Underdogs
13. Type 3 Diabetes
14. Ketones: The Brain Fuel
15. Insulin Fixes
16. Bacteria in the Brain
17. Eat Your Vegetables (and Berries)
18. Blood, Heart, and Brain
19. A Missed Opportunity
20. Paradigm Shift (?)
21. An Enriched Life
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Yu captivates with gripping tales of individual trials and triumphs. Her clear, concise explanations … are a master class in science writing.

Discover Magazine

Of immense value for both the medical community and the non-specialist general reader with an interest in the subject, 'Mind Thief: The Story of Alzheimer's' is exceptionally well written and thoroughly 'reader friendly' in organization and presentation. Enhanced for academia with the inclusion of fifty-six pages of Notes, a fifty-four page Bibliography, and a fourteen page Index, 'Mind Thief: The Story of Alzheimer's' is an essential and core addition to community, college and university library Health/Medicine/Psychology collections in general, and Alzheimer's supplemental studies curriculums in particular.

Midwest Book Review

Engagingly written and thoroughly researched, Mind Thief pulls together the history, biology, and sociology of Alzheimer's disease. The best history of the illness I have read.

Peter V. Rabins

Yu addresses an important, difficult topic in an accurate, approachable way. Mind Thief offers deeply researched insights and critique alongside human interest stories that dig deep into the study of Alzheimer’s. This book will be of interest to scientists interested in the long, difficult struggle to find a cure as well as to families affected by this devastating disease.

Philip E. Hockberger

Yu examines, assimilates, and presents a prodigious amount of information on the complex history of Alzheimer’s disease and the scientific work it has inspired. Everything is laid out in a clever, easily accessible manner that makes this information-rich book enjoyable for scientists and nonscientists alike.

Mary Michaelis

2020-11-17
A study of the global effort to find a treatment for the pandemic of brain disease.

After describing the history of Alzheimer’s and its explosion into national consciousness 40 years ago, Yu, who teaches technical, engineering, and science writing at Kansas State University, delivers an expert account of the groundbreaking research that revealed the genetics and biochemistry of the disease. These advances led to the first drugs approved by the FDA, beginning with tacrine in 1993 and ending with memantine in 2003. “Since then,” writes the author, “no new Alzheimer’s drug has been approved. It is, however, important to note that neurotransmitter treatments are all palliative. That is, they do not cure Alzheimer’s, nor do they stop the progression of the disease.” Her optimism does not conceal the fact that these are only marginally effective, and the placebo effect may play a role. Once pathological exams revealed that brains of Alzheimer’s patients show abnormal plaques and tangles of fibers, researchers experimented with vaccines and antibodies aimed to dissolve them or prevent their formation. Many worked dramatically in lab animals but failed in humans. Yu takes no prisoners in describing desperate efforts by even established pharmaceutical firms. When expensive studies fail, researchers often pore over the results to discover smaller groups that seemed to benefit—e.g., those with a certain genetic profile or mild disease. Although a disreputable tactic—quipped one expert, “if you torture the data enough, it will confess”—the result is often major headlines and increased stock prices, but so far no breakthrough or FDA approval. The author reflects that “one gets the feeling that we are simply throwing all the available drugs at Alzheimer’s and hoping that something sticks.” Yu has no doubt that science will defeat Alzheimer’s, but matters will move more quickly once we understand it. So far, researchers are guided by theories.

Accomplished popular science in which the author, uniquely, refuses to conclude that a cure is just around the corner.

Kirkus Reviews