Neuroscience talk on Alzeimer's

Ada Ducas, Librarian at the Medical School , reminded me a few days ago that this was Brain Awareness week, and the Neuroscience department at the University arranged for a guest speaker. They selected Dr. Carl W. Cotman a professor at the University of California in the Departments of Neurobiology . His topic was of brain aging specifically Alzheimer's. It was the Alzheimer Society of Manitoba who were sponsoring him. The talk was given at the Medical School (Theater C) as a noon lecture on Friday April 7th. He also gave a talk to the public on Thursday evening. I did not attend this meeting.
There were also many posters in the Brodie rotunda showing research being done at U of M. medical school. These were very technical and most of the information was well above my head. Similarly a major portion of Dr. Cotman's talk was very technical. However the portion relating to IRS - insulin receptor sites - and not the internal revenue service. discussed the information that not only do the brains of Alzheimer's patients produce less insulin but that the receptor sites for this hormone are less receptive to insulin.
After the presentation and during Q & A period I asked the question: in the light of such correlation in Alzheimer's with insulin is he willing to accept the comment made by some investigators that Alzheimer's may be considered Type 3 diabetes?. He was non committal. I then mentioned that many investigators overlook the embryological origin of insulin and the islet cells in the pancreas. They are derived from the neural crest - just like the adrenal gland which produces epinephrine. Therefor we should look at the pathology of diabetes- especially type I diabetes - a disease of brain tissue. He apparently was not aware of the embryological origin of islet cells
There was another observation which disturbed me. I looked at the large number of people not only at the noon meeting but within the campus buildings, I also quickly viewed the many posters and was impressed with their high technical calibre of them. These posters each had several authors indicating the large number of people in this one department alone. Were are we all going with this ? Even the person who introduced our speaker, mentioned that he had published over 700 papers not to mention many books. He mentioned that it would take over 3 hours just to read the titles and spend 30 seconds on each paper while searching the internet.
If every department at the universities were to expand in this exponential fashion, we will very soon not have sufficient library space to even house their publication. Providing research facilities and the moneys to support the same would be prohibitive. It seems to me the present trend is unsustainable.
Maybe its time to sit back and re-evaluate the purpose of all this technical research and training of postgraduates studies at our universities before the financial burden chokes us.