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Marquel, TPVs NYTimes I Forget Which Section correspondent was lost in thought when his editor forced him to read Can Exercise Reduce Alzheimer’s Risk. Exercise may help to keep the brain robust in people who have an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. It turns out that people with a certain genetic marker, but others, too, can slow or possibly even stop, the onset of Alzheimer’s.

The problem is that for those not helped by the regimen, there are increased risks, although researchers failed to work on that aspect of the experiment. Marquel knows Alzheimer’s patients. But they don’t know him. In fact they don’t know anybody. That’s the problem of Alzheimer’s and it’s heartbreaking.

Marquel went to a nearby Alzheimer’s clinic and looked for anyone following the exercise regimen. He found one named Oscar.

“Oscar,” I asked, “when was the last time you rode your exercise bike?” He looked at me wondering. Then he guessed.

“Today.”

I asked, “How often do you ride it?”

“Once.” He answered.

“Once how often?” I asked, “once a day, a week, a month?”

“Once a day,” he said.

“But it says here on your chart, ‘three times a week,’ ” I said.

“Yeah,” he answered, “three times.”

“You look good,” I said, “How you feeling?”

“Good.”

“That’s great,” I said, and moved on.

Next door I could hear the whirring of an exercise bike. It has been going since I entered over an hour ago. I went to take a look. The fellow looked gaunt. His pajamas seemed the sizes too big. He sat atop the bike. Sweat was pouring over his meager frame.

“Hey!” I said to him. He grunted. “How long are you supposed to ride this?” I asked.

“All day.” He said.

“But it says on your chart ‘three times a week.’

” I noted. ” ‘Ten minutes a session.’ ” He kept pedalling.

I asked, “what are you in here for? Are you a little sick with something?”

He looked at me and said, “Tonsillitis?”

“I think so,” I remarked. “Why don’t you stop pedalling for a while?”

He ignored me and pedaled harder. I thought maybe that’s good except for the fact that it looked like it would kill him. I left and saw two orderlies take him off the bike. It was sad. It didn’t seem that exercise was going to be the cure. Maybe it would slow things down a bit. But when it hits, you’re pretty helpless, in the grip of something with no sense of time, or anything else, for that matter. I spoke to the researchers. They admitted this was just pure research, designed to see what factors made the disease accelerate or not.

“So,” I asked, “you still don’t know much about this disease, do you?”

“Honestly, no,” he said, “not much different than cancer, for instance. We really don’t know shit.”

“Hmmm,” I went, trying to sound wise, “it’s sort of like the disease itself. In a sense you guys have Alzheimer’s yourself.”

He was refreshingly honest.

“You’re right. At this moment in our rlesearch, you might say we have researchers’ Alzheimer’s.”

“So what do you plan to do?” I wondered.

“Physician, heal thyself,” he said a bit cryptically.

“Well, do it fast okay?” I asked.

“We’re trying.”

I left, saw a Citibike rack, and decided to take a long refreshing ride.

For more NY Times coverage, http://nyti.ms/1rg76iW.

For more Marquel stop here.

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BY MARQUEL: Forgotten Title