Faked research, faked result.

Alzheimer's disease is a type of dementia and refers to a disorder in which mental functions such as memory, thinking, judgment, and learning ability gradually decline.

According to WHO, Alzheimer's is the most common cause of dementia worldwide. However, it has been difficult to find a cure over the past few decades. Statistics from around the world show that 50 million people worldwide are suffering from Alzheimer's.

It has long been known that the cause of Alzheimer's disease is an excessive accumulation of amyloid beta, one of the proteins, which blocks or slows the movement of neurological substances between neurons. This research was proven in a 2006 paper by Sylvain Lesne, currently a professor of neurology at the University of Minnesota. During the research, Professor Matthew Schrag of Vanderbilt University, who found out that the experimental data was inaccurate, whistle-blowed, and the errors in the paper were exposed to the public. 

After six months of investigation, the international academic journal Science announced that scientists had concluded that the Alzheimer's research paper published by the University of Minnesota research team in Nature in 2006 was highly likely to have been intentionally manipulated.

The paper supported the ‘amyloid hypothesis’ that amyloid beta protein, known as plaque in brain tissue, is the main cause of fatal diseases that afflict more than 50 million people worldwide. However, Professor Schrag discovered that there were problems with this paper as well and reported it to the American National Institutes of Health.

Experts in Korea claimed that this controversy over manipulation of the paper does not affect current dementia treatment research. Since oligomers, which are chains of amyloid beta protein, are defined as pathological evidence for Alzheimer's disease, controversy continues over whether amyloid beta protein is the cause or effect of the disease. However, this paper has been cited in countless research materials, and as errors in this paper have been pointed out, some are saying that the field of dementia treatment is going through a major blow.

Currently, patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease and their families are terrified and worried about the health of their families, even though this paper is not widely used in dementia treatment. Therefore doctors and medical experts who have the control over people’s health must not commit the ‘crime’ of intentionally manipulating and altering statistics when conducting research in the future, and do their best to save more lives.