Translations:Dave Johnson's Proletariat Protocol/17/en

1. It's gotta be cheap and available in the USA without assistance from a medical doctor. (This is a fundamental criterion for inclusion.)
2. There has to be a body of science suggesting its probable usefulness.
3. It has to be nearly without downside risk.
4. I have relied heavily on credible reports of efficacy coming from persons who post on this forum. To me, one credible anecdotal report of efficacy is worth more than a hundred PubMeds. A lot of PubMed is absolute crap, and even the reported results of clinical trials should be subjected to ruthless critique. (We're good at that here.)
5. Therapeutic components (usually "pills") that may produce immediate (within hours or several days) symptomatic improvement are to be preferred over those which lack such potential. You can find out in a hurry what actually works for you and what doesn't.
6. Therapeutic components which are not aimed specifically at symptom improvement but rather at slowing disease progression, should have a pretty solid basis in the scientific literature. "Solid basis" in this context does not necessarily mean a long history or a huge number of publications, it's more about the quality of the basis.
7. A lot of what we think we know about the biology of ALS comes from research on one specific "mouse model", 93a. ALS is many diseases and nobody reading this is a mouse. Nonetheless I regard good quality mousework as superior to in vitro labwork, and regard claims of extension of life after disease onset exceeding delta 15 days as worthy of serious attention.
8. There is abundant evidence in both humans and in animal models that the ALS disease process is typically that of a "neurodegenerative cascade". The biological processes prior to symptom onset are those of homeostasis (keeping things in balance, even though something may be out of whack), whereas after symptom onset the body's attempt to maintain things in balance has failed and the body's attempt to clean up the resulting mess inadvertently winds up causing further damage to motor neurons. Therefore, a therapeutic regime, in order to be maximally effective, has to tackle a wide range of processes in an attempt to stop the neurodegenerative cascade and to enable the body to recover homeostasis. In practice, this means an effective protocol needs to be a pile of various components, it's not likely that any one "pill" is going to suffice to correct the problem.