Alzheimer's disease destroys human knowledge, but perhaps more importantly, it decoheres the personality that organises this knowledge. It is only human knowledge that can defeat this destroyer of human knowledge. It has been described, treated (unsuccessfully) and researched for a century.
Let's see what Scirus tells us about the growth of human knowledge (and the commitment of research resources) on this. (BTW, I recently had another look at the sources Scirus uses, and it includes PubMed, so I won't be replicating this search there.) (And I got a quick scare by starting with the search term 'Alzheimers,' which only returned 1,428 results--if you're fact-checking me, and I hope to God someone is, use 'alzheimer.')
A search for Alzheimer on Scirus returns 1,274,572 results on Scirus, of which 112,401 are journal publications containing the term in the title, abstract or text. The search also returned 67,900 patents.
In the extended post, I will give the results by year and by five-year period. That's a Sunday morning for you--hot coffee and a database to search.
Okay--we'll assign 1920 as the base year for journals and infer 4 journal articles published that year, giving us a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 9.65%. This would indicate that human knowledge regarding Alzheimer's Disease doubles every 7.52 years.
However, the first patent was filed in 1976, which gives us a CAGR of 11.26%. This would double every 6.5 years. So, although work proceeds at a good rate and human knowledge is increasing, there is nothing like the growth rate seen in areas such as nanotechnology or global warming.
Again, we see that patent growth, starting at a later date, grows much more quickly than academic publishing. I am personally mystified as to why research into prions has grown twice as quickly as research into Alzheimers. Many more people suffer from Alzheimers than CJD, and the potential for both alleviating human suffering and reaping large rewards are much greater. The overall totals for Alzheimers research are greater than prions, don't get me wrong--but why is the growth trend favoring prions?
Here are the five year totals for a search conducted on Scirus for Alzheimer
Year Journals Patents
Total: 122,401 67,900
2002-2006 43,006 44,791
1997-2001 30,979 15,003
1992-1996 19,436 4,605
1987-1991 9,925 1,436
1982-1986 4,168 88
1977-1981 844 2
1972-1976 233 1
1967-1971 158 0
1962-1966 75 0
Here are the annual results for a search conducted on Scirus for Alzheimer
Year Journals Patents
Total: 122,401 67,900
2007 2,926 1,974
2006 11,021 9,664
2005 8,364 9,374
2004 9,624 9,292
2003 7,173 9,389
2002 6,824 7,072
2001 6,523 4,849
2000 7,611 3,205
1999 5,331 2,753
1998 5,452 2,486
1997 6,062 1,710
1996 6,515 1,442
1995 4,313 956
1994 3,936 824
1993 2,421 813
1992 2,251 570
1991 2,123 515
1990 2,202 389
1989 2,403 294
1988 1,714 164
1987 1,483 74
1986 1,467 44
1985 1,005 16
1984 710 19
1983 553 8
1982 433 1
1981 300 0
1980 208 1
1979 148 1
1978 97 0
1977 91 0
1976 77 1
1975 65 0
1974 29 0
1973 33 0
1972 29 0
1971 45 0
1970 32 0
1969 39 0
1968 24 0
1967 18 0
1966 14 0
1965 21 0
1964 16 0
1963 17 0
1962 7 0
1961 4 0
1960 13 0
1950-1960 75 0
1940-1950 10 0
1930-1940 21 0
1920-1930 35 0
Interesting how the epidemiology peaked in the mid 90s
Posted by: book publishing | 05/20/2010 at 06:27 AM