Herpesviruses And Potential Contributions To Alzheimer Disease: What Is Currently Known
The herpesviruses are a family of enveloped, double-stranded DNA viruses capable of infecting a wide range of mammalian species . The worldwide ubiquity of herpesviruses tends to be high due to their relatively broad tropism, with some species, such as the herpes simplex viruses, reaching over 80% seroprevalence in humans . Herpes simplex virus 1 is the most commonly studied pathogen in the context of AD, primarily due to identification years ago of HSV-1 DNA in AD patient brains at autopsy . The first of these studies identified latent virus in both normal and AD brains but postulated that differences in viral expression and susceptibility might underlie HSV-1 contribution to AD. Itzhaki and colleagues then demonstrated that the presence of ApoE4, the strongest genetic risk factor for AD, and HSV-1 together was a stronger risk factor for the development of AD than either factor on its own. While a role for HSV-1 has long been suspected in AD, other members of the herpesviruses have recently been implicated, including cytomegalovirus, EpsteinBarr virus, and human herpesvirus 6 . Largely, these studies have consisted of screening patient samples for the presence of these viruses, either through immunoglobulin titers or direct PCR amplification of viral DNA, and then comparing between AD and normal patients. More specific work has focused on HHV6s ability to seed A plaques in vitro and in vivo .
Is There A Risk Of Being Infected
Science is still working on determining what really causes Alzheimer’s disease. We know that risk factors like age, genetics, family history and lifestyle are all part of the picture. It’s also possible that an infectious property such as prions may be involved in Alzheimer’s disease, but this potential is unproven at this time and is based only on preliminary research with mice.
If it turns out that prions do play a role in Alzheimer’s disease, it’s important to remember that prion diseases are not spread through casual or even intimate physical contact with others. So, go ahead and hug that person with Alzheimer’s. Their disease is not contagious in any way, and they could experience some of the benefits related to appropriate physical touch for people with dementia, including lowering blood pressure, reducing pain and reducing challenging behaviors in dementia.
Is Bacterial Worse Than Viral
While bacteria and viruses can both cause mild to serious infections, they are different from each other. This is important to understand, because bacterial and viral infections must be treated differently. Misusing antibiotics to treat viral infections contributes to the problem of antibiotic resistance.
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White House Mandates Pfizer Vaccines For Millions Of Citizens Before The Fda Clinical Or Safety Reviews Have Been Made Public
Gee, what could have it been? Could it possibly be due to the fact that weve been in the middle of a freaking global emergency, the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic? Could it be that Covid-19 vaccines are a major key to stopping this pandemic? This year marked the roll-out of Covid-19 vaccines in many countries. And not surprisingly a cow-dung-load of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media soon followed these roll-outs.
Over 3.3 billion people around the world have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 so far.
In fact, some of the anti-vaxxer messaging has even claimed that the Covid-19 vaccines arent actually vaccines, as I covered in September for Forbes. This may have further fueled dictionary searches for the word vaccine, including those wanting to confirm the definition of the word to themselves and those wanting to confirm the definition to others.
The current definition of vaccine in the dictionary includes the following:
1 : a preparation that is administered to stimulate the body’s immune response against a specific infectious agent or disease: such as
a : an antigenic preparation of a typically inactivated or attenuated pathogenic agent or one of its components or products
b : a preparation of genetic material that is used by the cells of the body to produce an antigenic substance
The word “insurrection” was a runner up to “vaccine” for Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year 2021. … Hmm, did that have anything to do what happened on January 6, 2021?
Research About How Alzheimer’s Disease Spreads
While Alzheimer’s disease is not spread through contact with others, some research with mice seems to indicate that it could have some type of an infectious component, possibly related to prions . In prion diseases, including Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, prion proteins begin to fold abnormally and then infect other healthy prions they encounter within the body, causing cells to die in the brain and dementia to develop. Although the unhealthy prions spread within a person, there is virtually no risk of the disease affecting other people around that individual, including family members or those caring for that person.
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What Is Going To Occur If Air Sacs Are Broken
When emphysema develops, the alveoli and lung tissue are destroyed. With this injury, the alveoli cant assist the bronchial tubes. The tubes collapse and trigger an obstruction , which traps air contained in the lungs. An excessive amount of air trapped in the lungs can provide some sufferers a barrel-chested look.
What If Alzheimers Is An Infectious Disease
An infectious disease is one that is caused by a pathogenic microbe and may be spread directly or indirectly . Infectious disease rates have plummeted over the course of the past century due to advances in sanitation, vaccination, and treatment . Historically, once a disease is identified to be infectious in origin, treatment and prevention protocols have been successful.
The idea that Alzheimers disease may be an infectious disease is supported by a number of observations. There have been many correlations between common infectious and immune-challenging agents and the diagnosis of AD .
Could Alzheimers be an infectious disease? Some research says yes.
Seeding Alzheimers disease in mice. Researchers have successfully created senile plaques associated with AD by infusing dilute fluid from the neocortex of Alzheimers patients into mice . These results highlight a key pathogenesis for neurodegenerative disease in mice and open up avenues for research in human subjects.
Type 2 diabetes and Alzheimers disease. A link between type 2 diabetes and AD has been suggested as both diseases present with local inflammation and amyloidosis and are both associated with the presence of a common microbial community that includes Chlamydophyla pneumoniae, Helicobacter pylori, and spirochetes .
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Existing Evidence Suggests An Infectious Aetiology Of Neurodegenerative Diseases
The neurodegenerative diseases AD and AMD are complex multifactorial diseases that share modifiable and non-modifiable risk factors as well as common pathological mechanisms, including inflammation and oxidative stress .
Figure 1. Schematic diagram of risk factors and mechanistic events that underlie the pathogenesis of Alzheimer disease and age-related macular degeneration . The question sign indicates an unknown, potentially infectious contributor to the downstream immunopathological cascades that are common in both AD and AMD.
Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1
HSV-1 is a is highly neurotropic double-stranded DNA virus that is transmitted from person to person, mainly through direct contact with discharging vesicles or infected bodily fluids such as saliva . Shortly after initial infection, HSV-1 infects and remains latent within neural tissues, primarily the trigeminal ganglia . HSV-1 infection is characterized by prolonged latent periods and episodic recrudescence. In humans, HSV-1 is mainly associated with herpes labialis, but HSV-1 is also known to cause genital herpes and is the leading cause of sporadic encephalitis in the United States .
Serologic analysis, however, has also linked HSV-1 to increased AD risk. In a population-based cohort study, Letenneur et al. followed 512 initially dementia-free older individuals for 14 years and found, after controlling for age, gender, educational level, and ApoE4 status, that anti-HSV-1 immunoglobulin M antibody seropositivity was associated with a significantly increased risk of developing AD. In addition, high serum anti-HSV-1 immunoglobulin M antibody levels are associated with lower levels of plasma A1-42 and A1-40 a biomarker for AD.
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Lessons Learned From Bm
Despite there being no direct serological evidence that links causative pathogens of BM to AD/AMD, a decreased cerebrospinal fluid level of A42a biological phenomenon of ADwas found in patients with acute purulent BM . Moreover, the disease-causing immunopathological pathways seen during the acute phase of BM partially resemble the active disease stage of AD/AMD when host inflammatory responses tip towards detrimental effects . While correlations between BM and age-related diseases have rarely been investigated, it is worth mentioning that the lifelong cognitive and behavioral disorders among young BM survivors may predispose them to reduced cognitive reserve during later life, which increases the risk of AD . Furthermore, in the context of BM, although antibiotic treatment substantially reduces the mortality rate, survivors often exhibit neurological disorders upon recovery. The process of bacterial clearance by antibiotics, and bacterial autolysis, release immunoactive bacterial components that excessively amplify the host immune response and thereby cause permanent damage to host tissue . In this regard, effective treatment for BM can conceivably be achieved by optimally suppressing key pathological immune processes without compromising bacterial clearance. The search for an adjunctive treatment that mitigates the augmented inflammatory response, to be administered alongside a non-bacteriolytic antibiotic, may be a promising therapeutic direction .
The History Of Alzheimers Research
Alzheimers disease was first characterized and diagnosed over 100 years ago . Since that time, ideas on the pathology and treatment of AD have shifted from a focus on amyloid plaques in the brain as the cause , to misfolded tau proteins , to focus on the genetic heritability of the disease, to epigenetic influences , to inflammation as a primary culprit , to medication-induced mitochondrial dysfunction , and to metabolically influenced mechanisms .
The breadth of Alzheimers research speaks to how elusive this disease really is. Despite the uncertainty of specific causal mechanisms, there are currently five prescription drugs that are used to combat the symptoms of AD. The last drug approved to treat the symptoms of Alzheimers disease was brought on the market in 2003.
The overall success rate over that period of time was measured to be 0.4 percent .
Recently, a group of 33 Alzheimers researchers joined forces to raise awareness about a neglected piece of the Alzheimers puzzle: the correlation between the manifestation of this disease and the microbial world .
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The Bacteria Of Gum Disease
According to David Holtzman, neurologist at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis , APOE4 enhances the ability of amyloid-beta to convert from a soluble to an insoluble form. Thus, this protein would facilitate the seeding of amyloid plaques, which would explain its relationship with the disease. And this mechanism adds yet another piece to the puzzle, since APOE4 is not the only factor that can act in this way: Work in animal models has shown that certain infectious agents can facilitate amyloid seeding, adds Holtzman. And while this effect has not yet been demonstrated in humans, it points to the possibility that some conventional infections may encourage the development of the disease.
Strittmatter Laboratory/ Universidad de Yale / Adam Kaufman
So far, several infectious agents have been proposed as possible candidates. The bacteria Porphyromonas gingivalis, the cause of pyorrhea or periodontitis , has recently gained special interest. At the beginning of 2019, the work of a large international team of researchers not only revealed that the bacteria is present in the brains of Alzheimers patients, but also that oral infection in animals leads to the invasion of the brain by this microbe and the production of beta-amyloid. Furthermore, researchers have found toxic enzymes produced by the bacteria, called gingipains, that appear before the development of the disease.
What Are 3 Causes Of Non
Depression, diabetes or impaired glucose tolerance, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity, unhealthy diet, smoking, physical inactivity and excess alcohol consumption have been identified by the WHO Global Health Observatory data as common and preventable risk factors that underlie most NCDs.
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Is Alzheimer’s Contagious What New Study Says
Is Alzheimer’s disease contagious?
A provocative new study may have you pondering that question next time you offer a hug and a kiss to someone affected by the devastating neurological disease. It showed that the brains of mice injected with tissue from a human with Alzheimer’s exhibited changes characteristic of the disease – suggesting that some cases of Alzheimer’s may spread from person to person in much the same way that “mad cow” disease spreads.
“Our findings open the possibility that some of the sporadic Alzheimer’s cases may arise from an infectious process, which occurs with other neurological diseases such as mad cow and its human form, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease,” study author Dr. Claudio Soto, professor of neurology at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston, said in a .
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a so-called “prion” disease – meaning it is caused by misshapen protein molecules scientists call prions. Prions slowly destroy the brain tissue of infected people by causing a cascade of misshapen proteins. They’re known to spread via consumption of contaminated food, by getting a transfusion of blood or tissue transplant from someone who is infected, and during surgery .
Dr. Soto said that even if the research is corroborated, it will probably still make sense for people to do what they can to avoid well-known risk factors for Alzheimer’s, such as high blood pressure, smoking, and weight gain.
If Ad Is Infectious What Can You Do
It is not inaccurate to say that health is the best way to fight infection, but more specifically, a thriving, functioning immune system and a mindful perspective . An immune system under constant stress will slowly and steadily begin to malfunction over time, making our bodies more permissible to strange and pathogenic ecosystems .
The best way to support your immune system and overall health is to provide your body with the information that it needs to operate and to make sure that the information delivered is in fact received. The receipt of this information is influenced by your overall gut health . Once gut health is considered, the required information from your environment comes from:
Although I believe that Alzheimers is multifactorial and has several causes, the recognition that Alzheimers disease may be the result of a progressive, chronic infection may initiate new treatment options for this debilitating neurodegenerative disease.
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Herpes Linked To Alzheimer’s: Antivirals May Help
- Date:
- University of Manchester
- Summary:
- A new commentary on a study by epidemiologists supports the viability of a potential way to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. When the authors looked at subjects who suffered severe herpes infection and who were treated aggressively with antiviral drugs, the relative risk of dementia was reduced by a factor of 10.
A new commentary by scientists at the Universities of Manchester and Edinburgh on a study by Taiwanese epidemiologists supports the viability of a potential way to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
When the Taiwanese authors looked at subjects who suffered severe herpes infection and who were treated aggressively with antiviral drugs, the relative risk of dementia was reduced by a factor of 10.
Manchester’s Professor Ruth Itzhaki and Edinburgh’s Professor Richard Lathe say the paper, by Tzeng et al. and published in Neurotherapeutics in February 2018, also shows that herpes simplex virus type 1 leads to an increased risk of developing the disease.
“This article and two others by different research groups in Taiwan provide the first population evidence for a causal link between herpes virus infection and Alzheimer’s disease, a hugely important finding,” said Professor Itzhaki.
Professor Itzhaki said: “I believe we are the first to realise the implications of these striking data on this devastating condition which principally affects the elderly. No effective treatments are yet available.
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Is Mad Cow Disease Infectious
Is Mad Cow Disease Infectious? Neither vCJD nor BSE is contagious. This means that it is not like catching a cold. A person cannot catch it from being near a sick person or cow. Also, research studies have shown that people cannot get BSE from drinking milk or eating dairy products, even if the milk came from a sick cow.
Is mad cow disease infectious or noninfectious? Scientists examined two different forms of a prion-forming protein domain by means of NMR spectroscopy and found that the infectious and noninfectious forms differ markedly in their molecular structure. Infectious proteins known as prions have been identified as the cause of mad cow disease .
Can mad cow disease be passed from human to human? There is no evidence that people can get mad cow disease or vCJD from eating muscle meatwhich is used for ground beef, roasts, and steaksor from consuming milk or milk products. People with vCJD cannot spread it to others through casual contact.
How is mad cow disease transmitted? They can be spread to humans who eat the beef of an infected animal or come into contact with tissues of infected animals. The cattle themselves become infected with BSE by eating feed contaminated with the BSE organism. The cattle develop brain disease that results in death.
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What Is Alzheimers Disease
Alzheimers disease is a crippling, chronic, and progressive neurodegenerative disease that is conventionally understood to be irreversible. It is characterized by memory loss, dementia, cognitive impairment, and the presence of amyloid plaques in the brain . Approximately 5.1 million people over the age of 65 in the United States are diagnosed with AD, along with another 200,000 under age 65. This estimate is predicted to increase by 10 million in the next 35 years .
In addition to those diagnosed, this disease changes the lives of more than 15 million family members and caregivers. Today, the estimated annual out-of-pocket expense plus the value of the approximately 18.1 billion volunteer caregiver hours approaches a staggering $440 billion . Unless there are advances in the cause and treatment of AD by the year 2050, that number will approach $1 trillion. The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention reports that AD is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States . James et al. suggest that AD-related deaths are underreported and estimate that it is actually the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer .