Cold Sore Virus May Be Alzheimer's Smoking Gun 285
Science Daily is reporting that the virus behind cold sores has been found to be a major cause of the insoluble protein plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer's disease sufferers. Researchers believe the herpes simplex virus is a significant factor in developing the debilitating disease and could be treated by antiviral agents such as acyclovir, which is already used to treat cold sores and other diseases caused by the herpes virus. Another future possibility is vaccination against the virus to prevent the development of Alzheimer's in the first place. The research was just published in the Journal of Pathology (abstract).
Re:What about heredity? (Score:5, Informative)
From the article: "The team had discovered much earlier that the virus is present in brains of many elderly people and that in those people with a specific genetic factor, there is a high risk of developing Alzheimer's disease."
Re:What about heredity? (Score:5, Informative)
You're an AC so prolly won't see this response, but Herpes infection is endemic. I believe that 90% of all adults are infected with the virus that causes Herpes. I know this is confusing, because of the confusion with genital herpes, which can be caused by at least two variants of the Herpes virus.
C//
Re:What about heredity? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes. There's a gene called APOE-1. If you have a specific form of that gene, you're more susceptible.
Also, herpes immunity varies from person to person. Babies without any of the immunity typically die shortly after birth. Your immunity varies depending on a specific combination of genes.
I've been researching this stuff for a while... Inferring results from about 500 different medical papers I've read, Herpes viruses are responsible for:
Alzheimer's Disease
Type-II Diabetes
High Cholesterol, including high HDL and high triglyceride levels
Heart disease, including atherosclerosis (aka arteriosclerosis)
Cancer of the gallbladder (cholangiocarcinoma)
Colon cancer
Crohn's disease
Multiple sclerosis
Rheumatoid arthritis
Arthritis
Osteoporosis
Multiple myeloma
Glioblastoma multiforme
Bipolar disorder
Schizophrenia
Hodkin's Disease
Lymphoma
Breast Cancer
Kaposi's Sarcoma
http://www.accidentalscientist.com/2008/01/public-enemy-1-herpes-viruses-as.html [accidentalscientist.com]
Re:What about heredity? (Score:5, Informative)
I believe that 90% of all adults are infected with the virus that causes Herpes.
Yep, Herpes comes in at least 8 varieties in humans and over 80 in the animal kingdom. So if you've ever had chicken pox...
"Chickenpox is a highly communicable disease caused by the varicella virus, a member of the herpes virus family"
New York State Department of Health [state.ny.us]
Re:Herpes Simplex... (Score:3, Informative)
Exactly. There are a wide variety of diseases that are forms of or are related to HSV1/2. Chicken pox and shingles are just two. Additionally, there is viral meningitis, a form of encephalitis, occular herpes, and more.
Finally, this news isn't that exactly that new. They originally discovered a link between Alzheimer's and HSV-1 in the late 70s. This is just the latest study that confirms this.
Re:What about heredity? (Score:1, Informative)
If you live together as a family even for the most briefest of time, wouldn't you think the virus could be transmitted easily?
Also if your mom has it, there are lots of fluids passed between one another during the pregnancy and childbirth. And if your father had it, he would have infected your mother when he impregnated her.
A lot of fluids? No. There is a reason that only 25% of children born from HIV infected mothers also are infected by HIV. In fact, the probability of being infected with HIV is higher from breastfeeding than it is from gestation and birth. Study human biology buddy. The placenta develops for a reason.
Re:What about heredity? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epstein-Barr [wikipedia.org]
"The Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV), also called Human herpesvirus 4 (HHV-4), is a virus of the herpes family (which includes Herpes simplex virus), and is one of the most common viruses in humans."
The herpes family of viruses is certainly one of the most "successful." It's everywhere.
Re:Silver Ions in Solution Kill Viruses (Score:3, Informative)
HSV and VZV take up residency within the nervous system, where they remain indefinitely. Even if your proposed solution does kill an active HSV infection, it will not root out the latent virus, thus the cold sores will continue to periodically recur.
Re:What about heredity? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What about heredity? (Score:5, Informative)
I believe that 90% of all adults are infected with the virus that causes Herpes. I know this is confusing, because of the confusion with genital herpes,
There are two types of herpes simplex virus: HSV-1 and HSV-2. Historically, HSV-1 has been called "oral herpes" and HSV-2 "genital herpes." But in fact, either can infect either location -- or other locations -- and both cause similar symptoms. (In industrialized nations, particularly among college students, most new cases of genital herpes are actually HSV-1. Ah, fellatio!)
Statistics: 50% of adults are seropositive for HSV-1. 25% of adults are seropositive for HSV-2.
Re:Anti-vaccine crowd? (Score:2, Informative)
You're mixing up 'yer virii. HSV vice HPV.
Oh for fuck's sake, it's not virii. It's viruses. Please stop using this non-existent term.
Re:Can one be tested... (Score:2, Informative)
Herpes Neurotropism (Score:1, Informative)
To me this makes some sense (I'll pull up short of being the "that's not surprising" guy). Herpes is the most common cause of viral encephalitis in the United States, and many different members of the herpesvirus family establish latency in neurons. More to the point, and the reason HSV I (and II to a much lesser extent) is a common cause of encephalitis is the fact that it shows predilection for the trigeminal ganglion behind the eye, in close proximity to the cerebrum.
Re:What about heredity? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I may have herpes but at least I don't have her (Score:1, Informative)
BHT Supresses Herpes (Score:2, Informative)
Herpes is part of a family of lipid coated viruses. All such viruses are inhibited (but not cured) by consuming BHT. BHT in capsule and bulk for is available from VRP. For more on this visit their site, vrp.com/ [slashdot.org]. It works for me perfectly. More on this can be found here:http://www.advance-health.com/bht.html [advance-health.com].
Re:What about heredity? (Score:3, Informative)
Wow, that's a really interesting list. Partly because many of those items are *also* linked to autoimmune responses to gluten in the human diet. In particular, diabetes (Types I and II), Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, Rheumatoid arthritis, and colon cancer have been clinically confirmed to my knowledge; I also know of people with MS and Crohn's who find that going gluten-free improved their condition a great deal.
Re:What about heredity? (Score:1, Informative)
If you know any folks who have Shingles, it is also caused by the same Herpes virus that causes chicken pox.
Re:What about heredity? (Score:3, Informative)
Wow, that's a really interesting list. Partly because many of those items are *also* linked to autoimmune responses to gluten in the human diet. In particular, diabetes (Types I and II), Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, Rheumatoid arthritis, and colon cancer have been clinically confirmed to my knowledge; I also know of people with MS and Crohn's who find that going gluten-free improved their condition a great deal.
I've got an idea about that... You might want to check and see if there's also any connection to peanut allergies and those conditions, reason being that both wheat germ and peanuts have a high arginine-lysine ratio, which encourages herpes replication.
Re:BHT Supresses Herpes (Score:1, Informative)
This comment betrays a profound lack of understanding of chemical nomenclature.
The fact that BHT has toluene in its name does not make it substantially similar to toluene.
It's possible to come up with naming for brain compounds like dopamine and serotonin which use toluene as a root. For example: 3,4-dihydroxy-a-aminomethyltoluene is one (obtuse) way to describe dopamine. However, the physiological effects of toluene and dopamine are completely different.
That said, BHT as a treatment for cold sores sounds like a really stupid idea. Of course, that's par for the course with spam.
Re:correlation != causality (Score:5, Informative)
You should read the other papers by Wozniak and Itzhaki. They include, for example, studies on how the HSV1 virus in-situ in nerve cells affects the expression of tau and beta-amyloid proteins, causing them to generate the exact types of plaques seen in AD patients.
They've done a pretty damn compelling job. If they didn't have to dot their i's and cross their t's to the nth degree, I'd have called this one and said it's in the bag years ago.
Re:timely article (Score:3, Informative)
That said, it still makes sense to avoid sharing food, kissing, etc. people who have active symptoms. The amount of virus particles is much, much higher than asymptomatic shedding in such a case.
But otherwise, there isn't much you can do.
Re:What about heredity? (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9524256?dopt=Abstract [nih.gov]
http://www.nature.com/onc/journal/v22/n48/full/1207139a.html [nature.com]
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WWY-45K1406-T&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=b88d0fc0f181cae87b8a1bd7686a8caf [sciencedirect.com]
http://books.google.com/books?id=7NAvFJ-oDn0C&pg=PA73&lpg=PA73&dq=p52+oncogenesis&source=web&ots=f9fRAXEbkc&sig=Kdl7bxvWMFM18E2deunfget71ds&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA74,M1 [google.com]
http://www.springerlink.com/content/25300q641u238965/ [springerlink.com]
Note that in the above papers, Epstein-Barr explicitly subverts the P52 mechanism to its own ends (which is an interesting result).
Re:What about heredity? (Score:3, Informative)
I was just relating this post to my wife when she said "I wonder, if all that is true, if it is possible the vaccinations we all receive for chickenpox might actually be the root cause of all these diseases".
Errr...no. The chickenpox vaccine has only been licensed in the US since 1995. Almost no Aldsheimers sufferers have had that vaccine. If there were any effct from it, you wouldn't see it in most diseases associated with aging for a few decades yet.