In 2020 we wrote about research at MIT showing that exposure to light flickering 40 time per second can influence the appearance or progress of Alzheimer's disease. But is that still true? Maybe not.
One of the principles of scientific research is that others should be able to replicate your results. We wrote earlier about seminal research on amyloid pathology that no one bothered to seriously try replicating. Some tried, but they blamed the disparity in their results on their own methodology. Or they didn't pursue the disparities, because of the momentum that the original research had in the scientific world. A decade or two later, the original research turned out to be a fraud. While there's no suggestion of fraud around the flickering light research, other researchers are failing to replicate their results.
A recent article in ALZForum reported on research at New York University’s Langone Medical Center. While the research found a small effect from the light, it was nothing like that published earlier from MIT.
Why not?
As you can imagine, there is a lot of discussion around that question. Does it mean that flashing light won't influence the progress of Alzheimer's disease? Were there differences in how the research was conducted in the two laboratories?
I don't know, but my earlier enthusiasm for this as a path to a meaningful treatment has waned.
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