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).
I may have herpes but at least I don't have herpes (Score:4, Funny)
I just lost my train of thought.
Re:I may have herpes but at least I don't have her (Score:4, Funny)
Nastiest Alzheimer's joke ever:
Guy brings his wife to the doctor. Doctor tells him "We screwed up the lab results. She either has AIDS or Alzheimers."
Guy says "great, what should I do?"
Doctor says "Drop her off about a mile away from home. If she finds her way home, don't fuck her!"
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Re:I may have herpes but at least I don't have her (Score:4, Funny)
What you said reminds me of when I told a friend a stupid joke. He responded by saying, "It sounds like someone just made that up."
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No it's true, really. Happened to a friend of a friend of mine. His wife never made it home apparently.
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Not to HER home.
She's happier now, at least for a few minutes at a time.
No, wait wait wait... I got one! (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, so there was this guy with Alzheimer's, right? And one time some people came to his room. He was very tired, and so he mostly just lay in his bed. When he thought they might be saying something that needed a response he'd say "sure". Mostly, however, he kept quiet.
After a bit, someone else came in and asked him to eat some crushed-up pills and drink some juice. When presented with the straw for the juice, instead of drinking, he blew some bubbles through the straw - and everybody there got a good l
Strange... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Strange... (Score:4, Funny)
You coded in brainfuck without a condom and got cerebral herpes, obviously.
Re:Strange... (Score:5, Funny)
For those that don't know Sherlock (full name Sherlock Holmes) was an investigative detective from stores by Arthur Conan Doyle found here Sherlock Holmes [amazon.com]
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That's why he whistles on it, you insensitve clod!
That should probably read âoeyou insensitive coldâ.
What about heredity? (Score:5, Interesting)
Alzheimers runs in families, which is particularly worrisome for me since I have it on both sides of my family. If it is caused by a virus, then why is it passed down in genes? Are some people more sucseptible to this virus, thus there is a gene for vulnerabilty to this virus, instead of a gene for Alzheimers??
Re:What about heredity? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or "virus only does this to people with gene X".
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)
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]
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Don't forget Herpes Simplex 10, which is what Eddie Murphy's character 'Ramon' had in Beverly Hills Cop: [from imdb.com]:
"Tell Victor that Ramon - -the fella he met about a week ago? - -tell him that Ramon went to the clinic today, and I found out that I have, um, herpes simplex 10, and I think Victor should go check himself out with his physician to make sure everything is fine before things start falling off on the man."
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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:What about heredity? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What about heredity? (Score:4, Interesting)
Interestingly, if you get HSV-1 before you get HSV-2, it gives you a degree of immunity to HSV-2. :)
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]
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It's the great thing about statistics, if 90% of adults have it then a 100% of all people will die with it and some prematurely. Unless there's a factor that stands out the numbers can be spun to back most agendas. Unless they find that Alzheimer's is rare to nonextistent in people that don't have the herpes virus then it's hard to confirm anything when 90% of the population has it. Even then given the fact everyone for the most part are exposed to it an immunity to herpes might also protect you from other
Re:What about heredity? (Score:5, Insightful)
You know another great thing about statistics? People who know what they're doing can also use them to make meaningful calculations about the way things work in the real world. 90% vs 10% is an unbalanced sample, sure, but there are more than enough people in that 10% to make it a large enough sample size to calculate a meaningful odds ratio.
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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.
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I read your posts and found them to be very interesting and informative. I'd like to see more, when you have the time to write them. Thanks.
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From your part 3: Apparently HPV does its magic by interfering with the expression of gene P52, a factor in cell death (apoptosis)... Most likely you meant p53, just sayin.
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also, regarding the following:
"2. With the sheer number of cells in the human body, late-stage diseases such as cancer should always occur in childhood
Your body contains billions upon billions of cells, all replicating, all exposed to free radicals. Except during breastfeeding, your food supply doesn't change much through adulthood. Antioxidants, vitamins, etc, which protect cells should always affect you the same way - you shouldn't need more protection as you get older. It's a limited supply, that needs t
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---I don't follow this logic at all. Even if the rate of cancer-inducing mutations/epigenetic changes is constant the incidence of cancer should rise exponentially in relation to age since more and more of those mutations will have occurred as time passed.
Mainly that the rate of cell division actually drops significantly as you get older. As my GP says, fetal cells replicate so fast that they're pretty much just happy bouncing baby tumors. So if mutations are the cause of it all, surely those mutations shou
Re:What about heredity? (Score:4, Insightful)
But cells with "good" DNA can divide all they want without causing cancer, since they will only do so when the proper signal to do so is present. As you age more and more of your cells will have errors in their DNA (for the reason stated above) that cause them to divide irrespective of whatever external or internal signals to divide or kill themselves. These mutations aren't necessarily the result of faulty DNA replication but can be caused by environmental factors damaging the DNA in a way that isn't repaired correctly which, if it happens at the wrong spot(s), results in altered expression of genes involved in regulating cell proliferation or apoptosis, thus allowing that cell to become cancerous. So what I'm saying is that replication errors aren't the only cause of changes to DNA sequence (your viral theory is an example of this...).
Also the logic behind thinking that more innately proliferative cells are more prone to cancer is also two-fold in that the more times a cell divides the more replications the original DNA will have undergone thus allowing more chances for error (what you seemed to be thinking about) but also DNA packed tightly in heterochromatin is less available to react with whatever chemicals are around to alter it. S-phase DNA is necessarily more exposed to whatever random chemicals are floating around in the nucleus and, throughout the cell cycle, highly-proliferative cells will have those cell division/apoptosis regulating genes more exposed so that they can be easily accessed for transcription and since those genes are normally more active fewer mutations may be unnecessary before you end up with a cell that just grows out of control. Those obviously aren't the only factors though, since, as you say, how often a cell ends up with cancerous progeny isn't necessarily related to how often it normally divides. Maybe it has something to do with accessibility of those tissues to carcinogens or that the ability of the body to detect the faulty cell and/or mount an effective immune response differs by tissue...I don't know, maybe someone has studied it.
Anyway I guess what I'm saying is it doesn't make sense to conclude that cells that divide more become cancerous more often and therefore we should see the same incidence of cancer regardless of age, which is not what happens. Further I don't see how that conclusion supports a viral theory of cancer over chemically induced cancer (oxidative stress, carcinogens). I don't think theres anyone in the know who claims that the primary cause of cancers is errors during DNA replication. I'm obviously ready to entertain the idea that most tumors are the result of viral infection (or else I wouldn't have read what you had to say) but that point you were making still doesn't seem logical to me.
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From your part 3: Apparently HPV does its magic by interfering with the expression of gene P52, a factor in cell death (apoptosis)... Most likely you meant p53, just sayin.
I understand where you're coming from, but p52 is also an apoptosis mediator.
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:4, Interesting)
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".
Then I made another realization. Many of these diseases seem to be more prevalent then they have been in the past, that is to say that a higher percentage of the population are afflicted with these conditions then they used to be. Could the increase in these diseases correspond to the increases in vaccinating the public?
Holy smokes. Are we inadvertently introducing a weakness to all these other diseases?
Re:What about heredity? (Score:5, Insightful)
Many of the diseases that are more common now affect relatively old people. If you have a disease that rarely kills anyone under the age of 40, you will have seen a marked increase in it over the last hundred years or so.
Several forms of cancer are good examples of this. They are a lot more prevalent now than a century ago because few people lived long enough to develop them to a fatal degree. When comparing infection statistics, also compare age ranges. If diseases are more common in the 30-40 age range than they were, then you might want to worry.
Re:What about heredity? (Score:4, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy [wikipedia.org] http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lifexpec.htm [cdc.gov] http://www.efmoody.com/estate/lifeexpectancy.html [efmoody.com]
That's not to say that I completely agree with the grandparent poster. Medical science has progressed a lot during the past 100 years as well and medical screenings and diagnosis have improved to the point where we may be seeing more cases because we are simply better at screening and diagnosing illnesses where as a hundred years ago, many people may have died from illnesses that went unnoticed and their deaths were decided to be because of old age. Also misdiagnosis was likely common because so many diseases have similar symptoms and without today's medical labs to do testing, it's quite possible many patients were misdiagnosed before modern analysis was prevalent.
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Holy smokes. Are we inadvertently introducing a weakness to all these other diseases?
That's one of the main considerations of families who opt to selectively vaccinate or not vaccinate at all. While many (but not ALL) of the vaccinations on the CDC schedule have proven effectiveness in combating disease, there is *no* clinical evidence that the existing schedule (starting at two months of age with four shots, which carry a combined punch of 13 different disease strains) has any benefit over a schedule which starts later or goes slower.
To run with varicella as one example, scientists have a
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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.
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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.
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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
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From what I've been seeing, MS is more likely to be varicella zoster related than HSV1 related, however, your continued susceptibility to cold sores (most people stop getting them after a bout in their teens) may indicate a genetic susceptibility to herpres viridae.
Here's the paper I found on varicella zoster & MS:
http://archneur.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/61/4/529 [ama-assn.org]
They're very similar viruses, and the treatment is nearly identical, so I wouldn't be surprised if treatment for one would affect the othe
Re:What about heredity? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What about heredity? (Score:5, Funny)
But House only does it with four!
Re:What about heredity? (Score:4, Funny)
It's not Lupus.
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HSV I and HSV II (cold sores and herpes) are actually passed extremely easily by skin-to-skin contact. Condoms are not actually that great a way to protect against them. So they are very easy (well, cold sores anyway) to get from someone in your family even if you don't have sex with any of them.
It's estimated that between 60% and 80% of the US population has HSV I.
There is apparently also an additional genetic factor.
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Anti-vaccine crowd? (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's wait until the anti-vaccine douchebags hear about THIS. Doesn't this vaccine turn your prepubescent daughter into a whore?
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Or what about those who think immunizing their kids will bring about Autism?
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regardless, there are still fundie morons who insist the aforementioned assertion. they conveniently forget, or do not know, that it is for their daughters' protection as their future husbands are not likely to enter marriage as virgins.
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well, perhaps i was overstating. allow me to correct and clarify:
regarding the religious reasons behind the HPV vaccination, the assumption that their daughters will become instant sluts is unfounded. but i also feel that it's for the good of the women to get the HPV in the event that the man they marry (even if the women are virgins) aren't as pure as their brides.
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perhaps so, but it doesn't mean that they should put their daughters' future health at risk because she might give into her natural hormonal urges and/or because her boyfriend is persuasive enough.
i just don't think that their disapproval of sex is enough to warrant the possible future health risk.
how angry would Jenny if she stayed a virgin but still ended up with cervical cancer because her parents thought it give her an excuse to have sex?
it's not necessarily on par with the Christian Scientists who refu
Re:Anti-vaccine crowd? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I would say it is the exact same thing, refusing possibly life-saving modern medicine to their children based on unfounded religious beliefs.
Not to mention, the argument that HPV vaccination will "Lower the perceived risk of engaging in sex" is complete BS. Word wide, throughout history, no teenager in the world has ever thought - "I want to have unprotected sex... but I might get Human PapillomaVirus!" The health related factors that lead to the choice of abstinence are more along the lines of pregnancy, HIV, and genital herpes. The truth is, it is not about prevention it is about punishment. HPV vaccination isn't going to have any affect on decision-making, but it reduces the chance the people will die for screwing around, and religious fundamentalists don't want that.
Furthermore, even if you believe there is any morality to this argument, it is still baseless due to the fact that sexual contact is not the only way to get a virus, even blood-born ones. If your daughter steps on a used needle in the sand at the beach, and catches HPV, and dies of cervical cancer, what have you achieved? You are responsible for her death. Furthermore, refusal to vaccinate against STDs is tantamount to blaming the victim for rape, as this is a common avenue for infection.
If it wasn't clear already, I feel strongly that anyone who would advocate against immunizations for 'moral reasons' is morally despicable.
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Sadly, I had a girl say (almost) those exact words to me recently. I thought she was joking. She wasn't.
I don't see her anymore.
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Out of "over 16 million doses of Gardasil given" ... "at least 20 women who received the Gardasil vaccine have died, there is no evidence that deaths or serious outcomes were connected to the shot.[28] Where information was available, the cause of death was explained by other factors."
That puts it at a 1 in 800,000 ratio, where most cases were not actually linked to the vaccine.
At one SMALL beach where I live, lifeguards extract over 150 needles per year from the sand, well over 1 every 3 days. I'm willing
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Not to make pre-marital sex dangerous (Score:2)
You have a BRAND NEW vaccine, where we don't have long term data on it, that prevents a disease that affects a small percentage of people with a virus... oh, and the only way to get that virus is a behavior that they don't their children to engage in. Given that vaccines always carry SOME risk, however small, it isn't necessarily irrational that they not want their young daughters given it.
I have a cousin, as secular as they come, that passed on giving it to his daughter that was 10 at the time. He thinks
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I agree with your cousins logic (rather, I find no serious fault with it, though I might not make the same decision). I take issue with the structure of this thread however, as the earlier parent was referring explicitly to religious fundamentalists who make the decision for specific reasons.
Anyways, I also want to note that more than 95% of people are at risk for infection at some point in life (though not the resultant cancer) - currently "at least 50% of sexually active adults" have HPV.
I do think, howev
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A change to aggressive targeted vaccintaion policies did the trick.
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You're mixing up 'yer virii. HSV vice HPV.
Yeah, the difference is in the statistics: While only the majority of people end up with HSV, damn near everybody ends up with HPV.
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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.
timely article (Score:5, Funny)
in a few weeks, poor innocent little children will get visits from aunt bertha and grandma marge, and the first thing the strange smelly relatives will do is find the innocent children, exclaim "my how you've grown!" or "aren't you the cutest thing, i could eat you up!" and, approaching the children, who will now be rapt in horror, they will proceed to plant wet sloppy kisses, over the protestations and gyrations of the children sturggling to break free of the bear arm grip
and, the kids are right to object. they are trying to avoid herpes and alzheimers
kisses from old relatives is a brain mummifying disease
Also, they will get cavities (Score:2)
Those kisses will also cause caries aka cavities [wikipedia.org]
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Not to mention fainty pedophilic. Which kids are good at picking up on.
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There's an issue with this of course. By the time you get older -- say, into your early 20s -- about 50% of the people your own age have oral HSV-1. What do you do, live in fear of contracting the virus? Don't kiss your date good night? Only consider romantic involvement with the 50% of the population that doesn't have HSV-1?
The problem is that the only way to avoid getting HSV-1 that isn't completely absurd is to just be lucky.
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It's easy to avoid kissing, etc. people who are actively having outbreaks. I avoid that too. But people with HSV are contagious at other times as well. The phrase is "asymptomatic viral shedding" -- and, actually, infected people are shedding more often than they are having outbreaks! So if you rule out people who have HSV-1, and not just those who are currently having an obvious outbreak, then you've ruled out 50% of the population. What do you do, ask a girl "Do you have any history of cold sores?" b
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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.
wait, what? (Score:2)
nambla troll?
Oh crap! (Score:2)
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did "uncle" gary ask you to suck his meat popsicle, by any chance?
Sounds like correlation not causation - yet (Score:2, Interesting)
The team discovered that the HSV1 DNA is located very specifically in amyloid plaques: 90% of plaques in Alzheimer's disease sufferers' brains contain HSV1 DNA, and most of the viral DNA is located within amyloid plaques. The team had previously shown that HSV1 infection of nerve-type cells induces deposition of the main component, beta amyloid, of amyloid plaques.
100% might have been a clincher. If anti-virals help, I might have rto eat my worlds.
Most people have HSV1. HSV1 DNA locates in the amyloids. So
I wonder... (Score:5, Interesting)
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With these findings in mind, it would be interesting if someone were to do a study and see if there's a correlation between Alzheimer's incidence and people who have a tendency to get cold sores.
I hope not. The only time I don't have cold sores is if I restrict my intake of acidic foods (oranges, tomatoes, etc)
Can one be tested... (Score:5, Funny)
Can one be tested for the herpes simplex virus? I never had an outbreak, but one winter when I was cyclilng in -17C (stupid, yeah, gimme a break, I love cycling) I got a cold sore on the tip of my nose. So now I would like to be able to dismiss the idea I have herpes simplex. But if I have it, I'd like to start a therapy ASAP - I don't want to get Alzheimer's.
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Yes, there is a blood test for it. Chances are it will show positive. Most adults have it.
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Any chance it was simply frostbite?
Re:Can one be tested... (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, yes it was a frostbite! Is that not the same as a cold sore, then?
See, this happens because English is not my native tongue. Never lived in an English-speaking country, either. While I do have a reasonably good command of it, there are rare instances where English fools me, just like now.
Note to self: cold sore != frostbite
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Note to self: cold sore != frostbite
Indeed!
The phrase "cold sore" is a misnomer that dates back to when people used to think that the sores had something to do with "getting a cold." And people keep using this phrase, I think, because it is a euphemism that lets them pretend that it's somehow "different" from that "other herpes."
Just do a Google image search for "cold sore." They tend to appear on the lips, outside the mouth. What you are describing sounds completely unrelated.
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Herpes Simplex... (Score:4, Interesting)
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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.
trollin' trollin' trollin' (Score:2)
this thread really brought out the trolls...
Good News for Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
This is excellent news for most slashdotters since the herpes 'cold-sore' virus is typically transmitted by kissing.
Re:Good News for Slashdot (Score:4, Funny)
I said something like that to a doctor once at Mayo clinic. Imagine my surprise when he snapped back, "You can get it from kissing a glass."
Daaammmnnn (Score:2, Funny)
Prevention (Score:2)
So eould an AntiViral, like Acyclovir help prevent Alzheimers if taken early enough (say in your 40's)
Tapped out (Score:2)
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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.
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If homeopathy works, then my distilled water is more powerful than any of their concoctions!
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Let me get this straight. If I always wear a condom I won't get Alzheimer's? :p
I think you'd have to wear a condom over your face, too.
Re:BHT Supresses Herpes (Score:4, Insightful)
Let someone else be the guinea pig on this....
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.
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they think it causes it:
They propose that a weakened immune system allows the virus into the brain.
There, it causes flare-ups in the brain at various times when the person is stressed etc. Basically, just like the cold sores on your lips.... but in the brain.
These cause the cells to create this non-soluble plaque stuff which then gets left behind when the cells themselves die.
The treatment with anti-virals would presumably prevent, or decrease, the number of "flare-ups" in the brain and therefore reduce t