• Question: hey i am aggie i just wanted to know why it is that we can heal most diseaes but brain dseases like dementia we can't get around or find a cure?

    Asked by awesomeaggie to Mike, Pip, Tianfu, Tim, Tom on 26 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Tom Lister

      Tom Lister answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      In order to cure a disease, you usually have to know a lot about what the disease is and what causes it. We don’t yet know enough about the way the brain works to find cures to dementia for exmaple, although there are some things you can do to help.

    • Photo: Tim Stephens

      Tim Stephens answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      Yep, I agree with Tom. Diseases like Dementia are not understood fully enough yet for doctors to be able to cure them. There are plenty of scientists working on trying to cure them, so perhaps by the time that you or me are old enough to be at risk there may be a cure. Perhaps you’ll even become a scientist who works on trying to find a cure.

    • Photo: Philippa Bird

      Philippa Bird answered on 27 Jun 2012:

      Stem cell therapies (replacing damaged brain cells by growing fresh ones) might be very promising in this area, watch this space.

      The other complicated thing with brain treatments in terms of drugs is that there is a very effective barrier called the “blood brain barrier” which stops lots of things getting through into the brain, and that makes it hard to get medications across. Of course, it also means that if something is making your body ill it is less likely to make your brain ill, so that’s one benefit!

Comments