Hi, Shrewd!        Login  
Shrewd'm.com 
A merry & shrewd investing community
 Best Of MacroBest OfAll BoardsThe Shrewd’m WeeklyLearn to InvestHow to Become Shrewd
Search
Shrewd'm.com Merry shrewd investors
Search
Best Of MacroBest OfAll BoardsThe Shrewd’m WeeklyLearn to InvestHow to Become Shrewd

The week's question
In December 2024, in the thread "Re: BRK: Why Not XOM?", BreckHutHigh asked the members: "What about the long road trips with kids?" This week it is put to everyone again. The button below opens the small thread re-asking it - read what others have said so far, then give your own answer as an ordinary reply.
Answer this questionContinue to Shrewd'mThis note won't appear again
Personal Finance / Macroeconomic Trends & Risks
Unthreaded | Threaded | Whole Thread (5) |
Author: PucksFool ✧✺🐝  😊 😞
Number: of 4460 
Subject: Immune to Alzheimers, why?
Date: 10/09/25 9:41 PM
Post New | Post Reply | Report Post | Recommend It!
No. of Recommendations: 5
nytimes.com - Alzheimers gene mutation

Before dawn on a March morning, Doug Whitney walked into a medical center 2,000 miles from home, about to transform from a mild-mannered, bespectacled retiree into a superhuman research subject.

First, a doctor inserted a needle into his back to extract cerebral spinal fluid — “liquid gold,” a research nurse called it for the valuable biological information it contains. Then, the nurse took a sample of his skin cells. After that came an injection of a radioactive tracer followed by a brain scan requiring him to lie still for 30 minutes with a thermoplastic mask over his face. Then, another tracer injection and another brain scan.

During his three-day visit to the center, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, he also had cognitive assessments, neurological evaluations and blood draws that extracted multiple tubes for analysis.

For 14 years now, Mr. Whitney has been the one-person focus of exceptionally detailed scientific investigation, for which he travels periodically to St. Louis from his home in Port Orchard, Wash. It is not because he is ill. It is because he was supposed to be ill.

Mr. Whitney, 76, is a scientific unicorn with potential to provide answers about one of the world’s most devastating diseases. He has a rare genetic mutation that essentially guaranteed he would develop Alzheimer’s disease in his late 40s or early 50s and would likely die within a decade.

His mother and nine of her 13 siblings developed Alzheimer’s and died in the prime of their lives. So did his oldest brother, and other relatives going back generations. It is the largest family in the United States known to have an Alzheimer’s-causing mutation.

“Nobody in history had ever dodged that bullet,” Mr. Whitney said.

But somehow, he has done just that. Something has shielded him from his genetic destiny, allowing him to escape Alzheimer’s for at least 25 years longer than anyone expected.

Much more at the link
Post New | Post Reply | Report Post | Recommend It!
Print the post
Members reply directly to PucksFool here — and replies get answered. Reading is free; so is joining the conversation. Join Shrewd'm »
This community has written 4,454 posts about Macroeconomic Trends & Risks. The article-length ones it recommended most:
AI Tarpits · 36 recs · 2026
End of an era - profit slowdown · 36 recs · 2023
Control Panel: Trend changes in 2026 · 34 recs · 2026
From the Oregon Bay Area (a blogger) · 33 recs · 2025
Lerner Symmetry Theorem · 32 recs · 2025
Unthreaded | Threaded | Whole Thread (5) |


Announcements
Macroeconomic Trends & Risks FAQ
Contact Shrewd'm
Contact the developer of these message boards.

Ticker or Board Name Author

Best Of Macro | Best Of | Favourites & Replies | All Boards | Followed Shrewds | Open Questions | Moving a community