Scientists find links between Alzheimer's, herpes, and head trauma
statnews.com
statnews.com
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8560783/
[2] https://www.livescience.com/15453-nose-gateway-virus-brain-d...
https://secure.fredhutch.org/site/TR?px=1802786&pg=personal&...
In the meantime, taking anti-virals will reduce the risk of alzheimers:
The herpesvirus family could be causing ADHD, Alzheimer's, MS, and a whole host of other brain diseases. Perhaps even a general cognitive decline in the population.
There are some "checks in the mail" that could arrive at any time that, if I was the sort of person to worry about the future, would make me worry about the future. But I don't tend to worry, but maybe that's a symptom... I am known to have an incredibly patchy memory; some things stick in great detail, but other things are entirely lost immediately.
As an aside, sun exposure tends to bring on a cold sore 'episode'. Plenty of sunscreen and more specifically lip balm helps prevent it from occurring. But during an Australian summer that requires dedication I haven't quite mastered.
It's worth noting that HSV-1 seroprevalence is extremely heterogeneous. Many nations have rates over 90%, which some Northern European nations have rates of 40% - suggesting broad immunity or reduced transmission. Although this could also be a function of different amounts of research and testing.
What does this mean exactly? My understanding (and experience) is that over time you will have fewer outbreaks naturally
I live for now and don't put a lot of stock in having a great life after 65.
In American football, much depends on the position you played. I am not sure how that is for Aussie rules but lineman and linebackers who would be involved in more hits have it worse than wide receivers and cornerbacks. That never seems to be reported with CTE.
The concussion count is mostly non-sense from my understanding. I think this is how the NFL has shaped the narrative to not be so bad and their bogus "concussion protocol". The subconcussive hits are the major problem and that is just part of football. I took at least a thousand of them smashing heads together.
It is also degenerative over time. You aren't going to just wake up one day with problems. If it is really bad you are going to have crazy behavior problems. Like Aaron Hernandez. I am sure OJ Simpson had bad CTE.
I just doubt cold sores are that big of a variable compared to being hit in the head thousands of times.
My memory completely sucks but that has just made me an incredibly good note taker for job related functions.
I'm still waiting for the research community to let the amyloid theory die its long-deserved death and start focusing on tau; hopefully it will restore some momentum towards clinical treatments/prevention.
> start focusing on tau
The tau hypothesis has been a thing for a long time as well. I wish we'd stop focusing on molecular indications altogether and look at the plausible etiological agents as mechanisms.
The herpesvirus family, certain gut microbiota, blood-brain barrier breaches, immune cell activity, and insulin dysfunction are all incredibly plausible mechanisms that might all somehow contribute or lead to the disease.
My hunch has always been: brain cleans itself. So long as brain cleans itself, infections like herpes and some of the bacteria involved in gingivitis can't trigger the amyloid domino effect that could cause Alzheimer's. But once that cleaning mechanism fails (head trauma), the body can't clean the detritus from the brain fighting the infection anymore. Apoe4's association with boosted hsv outbreaks factored in as well.
I'm oversimplifying it and am probably taking wild stabs in the dark, but I'm hoping the avoidance of high risk behaviors ends up paying off.
But the next question is whether this is all for nothing — if VZV (chickenpox/shingles) ends up having a similar effect... we're already giving our kids weakened VZV vaccines anyway. Seems like the longer term solutions will be:
1) vaccines to prevent hsv/vzv/hhv etc, but they'd end up being love and thus pose a similar but lessened risk
2) ensuring a way to excise the viral DNA from any of these
3) finding a means to rebuild the glymphatic membrane after trauma.
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My comment is a lot of wild pontification. Any MDs wanna provide a sanity check on anything I said?
I have found that sleeping on the left side and meditation like yoga nidra maybe possible.
But I'm really looking for something like TCDS or a specific exercise or supplement.
What makes herpes so special? The fact that it sticks around?
That's a majority, but far from "everyone".
Almost every one of us already has Candida albicans but we don't all get yeast infections. Almost everyone of us already has Cutibacterium acnes but we don't all get pimples. Almost everyone of us already has Streptococcus pyogenes but we don't all constantly have strep throat.
All three of those examples are examples of species that we all normally have and even play beneficial roles for our health (Streptococcus plays important roles in digestion, Cutibacterium can actually improve your skin health and protect your skin moisture barrier, and idk about Candida but I bet it has some benefits too lol). But when the natural ecology is disrupted they can grow out of control. E.g. yeast infections and strep throat are both significantly more common after taking antibiotics which can kill off other beneficial microorganisms that are often necessary to keep those "opportunistically pathogenic" microbes in check
I'm willing to bet it's the same story for bacteria that causes cavities or gingivitis. It's not a specific strain that you should be worried about but a pattern/ecology that you should be worried about. That's much harder to "spread" and has a lot more to do with factors like your daily habits, diet, and even genetics
tl;dr: I'm with grandma on this
Neonates are uniquely susceptible to HSV and it can cause permanent catastrophic brain damage and death. Sharing saliva in any baby under 6 months is a terrible idea. It tends not to make the news, but if you search for "herpes" and "bris" from religious individuals putting their mouth on the genitals of children, then you will find plenty of examples. But it's the same reason you shouldn't let people kiss your child: any cold sores (or asymptomatic shedding) can be fatal to your child.
Stay strong with your mom. She is lucky that she's unaware of the risk, but the risk is there.
My wife has oral HSV. I don't. We're not careful and we've been together for years with many breakouts. I don't think I've avoided it because I'm magically immune. My guess is that I have it, but I managed to limit it to the degree that I never get a breakout.
Now that I think about it, my wife hasn't had a breakout in two years, pretty much since getting pregnant. Weird.
During pregnancy the mothers immune system is muted, which prevents "rejection" of the fetus.
However, in an almost "parting gift" fashion, the departing fetus actually leaves behind immune cells that can provide years of boosted immune activity.
I know I’ve been exposed countless times from similar experiences, and have always (100% of the time, n==10ish by now) tested negative for it.
Is that so weird? With how prevalent it is, I don’t see how it’s actually possible for <100% of people to not have it otherwise. Unless some large percentage of people are literally living in a bubble, anyway.
our entire scientific institution and method just tests for one thing, says nope, and dismisses any more complex thought on the subject. unless you do it yourself, which is a very high bar to accomplish
There are plenty of diseases where we have identified multiple risk factors successfully. We have examples of diseases where either risk factor alone is often causative (e.g. pulmonary cancer can be caused by smoking, or by long term asbestos exposure, and if exposed to both, fixing just one won't make the risk very low; and there are of course many other substances that can cause this). And we have also identified diseases where you need two (or sometimes more) separate factors to trigger it (e.g. shingles is a diseases that is triggered in individuals that previously had chickenpox, but generally only if their immune system is weakened by something else, typically old age).
— Wikipedia
NYT editorial touting a book declaiming the corruption in Alzheimer's research
https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.100...
That's the rub. Even if this non-traditional brain model is to be taken at face value, there is a missing variable somewhere, arguably more important; HSV-1, at best, would be a contributing factor.
That is mixing up necessary versus sufficient. If all people who develop Alzheimer’s contracted HSV-1 prior to developing Alzheimer’s and all people who did not contract HSV-1 do not develop Alzheimer’s (technically implied by my first statement), then you can make a good case for causality. Obviously you can do better, but that is a good start.
Did you completely miss the point of the article and even of the quote you copied. "the latest work addresses [this very criticism you have]"?
The article tells us what the missing link is (according to their hypothesis). That's the whole point of it. It's even in the title.
That'd be the suggested missing link, physical impact disturbing dormant virions in the brain or allowing a temporary passage to a part of the brain they're normally unable to reach.
https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.abj8222?src=... [PDF]
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WTF is this!?
I mean there are literally cases like Gabrielle Giffords where people have a penetrating bullet injury and live (not without damage, but they live), and others where a seemingly minor bump spirals to become fatal damage over the space of a few days to a week.
In our family and their social circles, Alzheimers and Dementia are quite prevalent, but absent in any siblings who ate and drank (liquor) "more expensive" and less "impure" ( impurities introduced in all the steps of agri-/horticulture and (ultra-/processing) ).
Some stuck to the epithany that "this is not real meat" and "this is not real milk" when they arrived from the East, others didn't. Some noticed the effects of concentrates vs whole ingredients and others didn't.
IMO, focus on what happens to the nerves in body rather than brain when they are affected by anything "artificial" or "impure". Alzheimers , Dementia, Herpes and so on are the end of a long line of "stuff that happens".