Max Lugavere

Benzos are strongly linked, chronic use of benzos.

Ambien, I'm not, I haven't seen any strong data on Ambien, but like benzos are definitely linked because they're anticholinergic drugs.

So they basically block a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine, which is really important for learning and memory.

And there might be downstream, you know, other mechanistic ways in which these drugs seem to increase risk.

But what we do know is that the chronic use of these drugs is, yeah, strongly associated.

It has been, arguably, yeah.

What is it?

Yeah, so amyloid is a protein that we all produce in our brains.

It comes from amyloid precursor protein.

We all produce it.

It's a natural part of our biology, in fact.

Research out of Harvard suggests that we might produce it as a response to inflammatory insult and potentially as a way to prevent infection in the brain.

They've shown in petri dishes that amyloid beta aggregates around the herpes virus.

So it's this compound that we all produce in our brains.

But the problem is when it becomes pathologic, when it

basically becomes insoluble and forms these plaques called amyloid beta plaques, which is one of the defining features of the Alzheimer's brain.

The question is, is amyloid causal with regards to Alzheimer's disease?

And the prevailing hypothesis over the past couple of decades was that it was.

But a slew of new drugs which have, you know, come on the market and not without controversy have actually succeeded at reducing amyloid in the brain.

But what they don't do is cure the condition.