Infectious Theory of Alzheimer's Disease Draws Fresh Interest | Hacker News Reader

Infectious Theory of Alzheimer's Disease Draws Fresh Interest

npr.org

222 pointschriskanan89 comments

Open articleView on HN

Another theory is that Alzheimer's is a vascular disease [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6], i.e. atherosclerosis of the brain.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12480752

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24489130

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23239205

[4] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20695015

[5] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15699381

[6] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23204143

This would make sense. HerpesVirus has been shown to cause atherosclerosis as well, in humans. The connection? Herpes binds to the APOE gene sitting on cholesterol-carrying LDL particles ....

https://medium.com/@InfinoMe/cholesterol-have-we-shot-the-me...

I spent 3 years in one of the nations top alzheimers centers. It is still shocking to me how some of the seasoned veteran professors in the field are both unfamiliar with the 20 years of viral literature behind Alzheimers, but that they also completely write it off as being unlikely. Curing alzheimers starts with curing the old dogma pervasive in the field.

Incidentally, the time is now for young hackers to get into biomedicine. We need you.

So maddening to hear that! The funding should be diverse enough not to go to all the veterans.

Sadly, the requisites to enter in biomedicine research are overhelming.

Nada - most hospitals really need computational help. If you come in and have machine learning chops, you can do can even do better financially than most bench biologists.

Starting your way in IT and working into a data science role is definitely possible, regardless of credentials. It's all a matter of finding the right lab and project.

So what's up with tangentially related associations like Parkinsons, Lewy Body dementia (see: Robin Williams) and also Chicken Pox and Shingles. Aren't these all a relatable set of problems, then?

I personally think so, yes. Evidence in the literature is more scant, but there are documented cases.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1600-0404....

The more I think about the anatomy of cranial nerves, the more I wonder if different dementia subtypes are caused by different viral strains that have gotten really great at infecting specific nerves. Take for example the trigeminal nerve. There is literature out there showing that a large fraction of people (>70%) have HSV-1 present there at time of death : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3546524/

How would the virus get in? Im wondering if its via the nerves in your teeth! http://teachmeanatomy.info/head/cranial-nerves/trigeminal-ne...

For dementia .... still working on that.... Im convinced though now that frontotemporal dementia might have something to do with the facial nerve getting infected somehow. It would make sense, given the facial paralysis present in bvFTD patients. Can't find it now, but theres a paper out there connecting coxsackievirus to FTD

EDIT: BTW, for shingles, connection is much stronger with Alzheimers

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5699837/

It's more recently called diabetes type 3, too, which would also make some sense, as diabetes and atherosclerosis have also been linked.

There actually exists a type of Dementia called Vascular Dementia too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vascular_dementia

Microbial theories of Alzheimer's don't change the amyloid cascade hypothesis picture - that the disease begins with high levels of amyloid aggregates, then proceeds to high levels of tau aggregates enabled by the amyloid, and it is the tau that causes the real harm. That persistent infections raise amyloid production - because that amyloid is a feature of the innate immune system - is a way to try to answer the question of why only some people have raised levels of amyloid. If you can point to chronic infections that are present in 10% or 20% or 30% of the population (but not much more than that), such as some herpesviruses, this sounds plausible.

The other problem is that there are people with high levels of of amyloid who don't get Alzheimer's, so you need other factors as well. That may be obesity / metabolic dysfunction, hence the view of Alzheimer's informed by metabolic syndrome, diabetes, insulin.

The further challenge is that chronic inflammation in immune aging is clearly an important factor, as is vascular aging. A third of Alzheimer's patients also have some degree of vascular dementia, and the decline in blood flow and capillary networks are clearly significant in neurodegeneration considered as a whole.

Another point to consider is that a competing hypothesis for the microbial increase in amyloid levels is the progressive age-related failure of cerebrospinal fluid drainage to remove buildup of aggregates as it does in youth. This has just as compelling a set of supporting evidence at the present time.

Alzheimer's is a condition with many significant contributing causes. The amyloid cascade (with the various reasons as to why there might be more amyloid), immune aging, vascular aging. All the causes may be real, and about as important as one another. It is a condition that results from many discrete items, most of which may have to be addressed to produce significant gains in the patient population.

this is likely true.

I have always wondered why some folks w/ amyloidosis or cerebral amyloid angiopathy don't show AD pathology or symptoms.

Alzheimer's is the cruelest of illnesses and the loved ones of the victims suffer as much as the victims. The allure of this theory, in my view, is that if you could somehow turn this into a treatment, people would give you whatever money you demanded for it. You want $200,000? We'll find it, somehow, just make Mom remember who I am, please.

The amusing thing about your "cynicism" here is that $200,000 would be a substantial savings compared to what happens now, never mind the huge value an effective treatment would provide.

In the US, the government (and thus society at large) bears much of the cost:

http://act.alz.org/site/DocServer/2012_Costs_Fact_Sheet_vers...

4-5 years of a nursing home vs cured alzheimer's isn't even a hard decision

Looking at ~350k-400k for my dad if he lives another 5 years. Given his spending before Alzheimer's 200k would be an easy choice for us even even from a purely cold financial perspective.

And you have fallen into a different statistics trap. The number that matters isn't the cost of treating the patient. What matters is the increased lifetime costs of a paticular disease over the average. We all have to die of something. Diseases like lung cancer are cheap. The patients are either cured or dead relatively quickly. Demential is slow. Costs pile on for decades, starting often with forced early retirement long before formal medical costs are noticed. But we still have to normalize for the fact that, be it cancer, heart disease or dementia, most all of us will eventually need expensive care for some number of years.

Nursing homes are among the cruelest and most in humane institutions, worse than prison in many ways. Anything that avoids nursing home days is worth it’s weight in gold.

I have worked in many as a care aid providin direct care to residents. I worked for 7 years in one facility that worked with advanced Alzheimer's and dementia like condition clients. I would not describe the nursing home as cruel or in-human, though to a person with sound mind it certainly would. The people who resided there simply could not live alone. They would soon be seriously hurt or die. So yes when they enter the facility they don't have all the same freedoms as you and I. It is not safe. They leave ovens on, let strangers have access to their money, go wondering in the night no regard to weather or other important factors and so on. Now on the family side of things they have been probably spending months trying to manage their loved one and at the same time are grieving the loss of that loved one as they watch the person they once knew fade away. Every hour for the family is spent wondering if mom or dad is safe at home and eventually their lives come to a halt and they start to experience care giver burn out. The facility provided a safe harbour for their loved ones. We ensured medications were taken on time. That they would get up in the morning and put on clean clothing and wash up as needed. We tried to entertain the residents with music, games and various activities. The facility I worked at made it so the families could finally breath and know their loved on me was safe at the end of the day. I hope others find the nursing homes they deal with to be the same experience.

My grandpa spent the last several years of his life with Alzheimers in a nursing home. Furthermore, I spent several years as a telephone technician, and I worked plenty in nursing homes. My overall impression (at least of the ones in my county) is that they are poorly managed and the employees are overworked, and presumably are very underfunded. My grandpa received excellent care, but that was because my grandma went in almost every day to check in on him. There were several occasions when she raised hell because he wasn't being taken care of properly.

There are indeed excellent facilities for elder care. But there are many horrific ones, and the difference between them can be hard for outsiders to determine (whether for families, or for yourself).

Case in point: My parents had one hell of a time finding good care for my grandfolk (incl. siblings of grandparents). In their state, there is an entire industry of corrupt nursing homes, which also have all sorts of "awards" for the excellence of their care. Just the tip of the iceberg: staff physicians who never, ever appear on site, yet who collects a paycheck by prescribing tranquilizing drugs for any resident at the facility's request, all sight unseen. The facility routinely dubs its residents as "troublesome" or "aggressive" to dope them up and 1) mean they have to provide no active care, because turnips in wheelchairs/beds don't do anything and 2) ensure a relatively quick decline in all residents, because total immobility is a great slow-acting poison, especially on the vulnerable elderly. Thus quick turnover and higher profits are ensured, all while labor costs are kept low. Eventually good facilities were found, the best of which was a wonderful VA program in a home with a live-in nurse, specializing in care for those with dementia. But not before the horror shows had taken their toll.

> quick turnover and higher profits

Why would turnover increase profits for a nursing home?

The quick turnovers are likely caused by being understaffed and underpaying employees. Both of which would help with profits.

Most people don’t have a lot of assets. Medicare pays a decent reimbursement rate that declines over time. Medicare also pays for rehab tied to outcome, and nursing homes tend to have bad outcomes so they only get 90-180 days of that.

Once you’re off Medicare, if you cannot private pay (or once you run out of cash), you go on Medicaid. The county seizes your remaining assets and pays a very low reimbursement.

The ideal nursing home patient either has cash or requires short term rehab, and either leaves or dies in <180 days. The old ladies watching judge Judy or playing checkers are low margin.

Some also charge a $80k+ admittance fee. They try and make it sound nice by saying the fee is so they will never kick them out if they run out of money.

I would suspect there must be some fine print somewhere that states that you would be kicked out if you ran out of money eventually. The facility I worked at charged $4500 a month which was considered really cheap as another one near by had no problem charging $6500 a month but provided half the care my facility did, just a nicer setting along a lake with a beautiful view. At even $4500 a month it is $54,000 annually. I can also tell you things can move very slowly in the medical field for these elderly people so say if something big in the family did happen and they suddenly could not pay, that $80k would get eaten up very quickly as they tried to locate additional funds for that individual. The facility that I worked at only required a single months deposit. When people could not afford to pay my boss would often cut them deals to have them stay longer.

Often what another poster said: there's a large admittance fee and/or you sign all of your assets over. Combined with the Medicare/Medicaid issues cited by another sibling post, there's a strong financial disincentive to have residents live longer.

> staff physicians who never, ever appear on site, yet who collects a paycheck by prescribing tranquilizing drugs for any resident at the facility's request, all sight unseen

My mother and her siblings have had EXACTLY this experience with my grandfather – and they've had prior experience choosing nursing homes. It's horrible. They dope him up on who knows what medications for perceived illnesses without consulting family. Thank goodness my attentive and no-bullshit aunt discovered they were medicating him for "pneumonia" and "congestive heart failure" prescribed by a call-in quack for what turned out to be a bit of aspirated fluid. She forced them to get him off the meds and he returned to normal (modulo Alzheimer's) in days.

The whole industry is based around appearing like they're doing something to oblivious or disinterested families (which unfortunately exist), while doping their helpless patients into a slow meaningless death. There are good individuals (my folks made sure to make ties with them, else my grandfather would quite literally have died due to negligence by now), but the industry as a whole is rotten.

Can you provide referrals and / or known good facilities? Direct email welcome.

The linked pdf says that (in 2012), end of life care for Alzheimer's and other dementia patients was $110,000 more expensive than a couple of types of cancer.

I remember a professor talking about the tobacco industry trials and they were talking about damages that the tobacco companies should pay to the state for increased healthcare costs due to lung cancer, and he said that the supremely ironic thing was that people who die from lung cancer at 45 have much less lifetime medical spending than people who die from most everything else at old age. He said exactly what you did, that people forget we all die of something, and the older we get, the more likely we are to have repeated long hospital stays or need long term care.

Obviously that isn't to say it's good for people to die young from lung cancer, but analyzing anything medical from a money perspective is tricky.

Thy dystopian Logan's Run [1] featured a society optimized for total lifetime cost, where everyone gets euthanized at a certain age. Not sure we want to go that way :)

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan%27s_Run

> The allure of this theory, in my view, is that if you could somehow turn this into a treatment, people would give you whatever money you demanded for it. You want $200,000? We'll find it, somehow, just make Mom remember who I am, please.

Experts please correct me if I'm wrong, but even if this theory were to be proven true, how could it help anyone once the damage is done?

I won‘t speculate about the feasability in humans, but at least in a mouse model, it looks like it‘s possible to at least partially reverse some symptoms: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180214093712.h...

I'm wondering, after the recent finding that herpes anti virals can reduce the chance of getting alzhemiers by up to 10x whether its worth trying them on my dad who's got some kind of dementia. Not sure if it's got a chance of working. The drugs are fairly cheap widely available and low side effects - the same stuff you take for cold sores. I guess the idea would be if you could control viral stuff the bodies normal repair mechanisms could help.

It sounds like you take some concern into your dads health and that you care. I would encourage you to be open and ask questions and find the information you need to help how you can. Maybe that is talking to your mom or if he is alone perhaps start a conversation with his doctor. If this is just something you have noticed but hasn't gone through the doctor I highly encourage you to do so. There are several causes to dementia. One being Alzheimer's as most know example but there are other types of dementia like vascular dementia where medications absolutely can help to some extent. Anyways don't be afraid to ask the questions. Wish you and your family best regards with all this.

IT may be more like - give mom the ability to re-learn who I am. Once AD hits, the memories are destroyed, so if things get restored, it may very well be a new a different person. Albeit one with the ability to learn and retain memories.

Presumably you would treat during early onset.

Is that something we actually know, that it's the storage area that's damaged and not the retrieval pathways?

The adult brain has some limited ability to recover from injuries. It's quite possible that if an aggravating factor was removed, Alzheimer's patients could slowly improve.

This research could make it only more cruel. Proof that it is caused by a germ, that is may be catching, would suggest that sufferers should be isolated from healthy people to prevent spread of the infection. Id be happy if it were caused by bacteria or a virus. Those we can deal with. But what if it is a prion like bse? Could it linger in houses? Are nursing homes now a biohazard? Dark days.

The link between viruses and some cancers already points to some scary realities. Perhaps the kids shouldnt visit grandma in hospital. Imagine being a kid with cancer when your classmates learn that they might catch cancer from you? It could be like the early days of the AIDS panic again.

It's almost certainly not infectious in that kind of way or you'd notice the nurses in the old folks homes getting it.

Worst case: they are getting it, but not finding out until they themselves reach old age.

I think even that would be noticed by now. If almost every person that worked in a nursing home 30 years ago are getting Alzheimer's.

But why assume that people who work in nursing homes will be more exposed? Work is only part of the day. A great many more people live with elderly/dementia patients in their homes. We are all in contact with such people daily. If there were a germ that we could 'catch', I wouldn't assume that people in nursing homes were a special population. We may all have it.

From an article cited in the OP:

"Neurosurgeons were more likely to die of Alzheimer disease, other nonneoplastic nonvascular nervous system disease, leukemia, and aircraft accidents, when compared with the general population."

That looks like persons exposed to the brains of patients may be catching something.

What if it was a germ? How would one go about finding it? Where would one find the non-infected population with which to compare? It may be a combination of a germ and genetics and that germ may be pervasive in our environment, but that doesn't mean the germ cannot be isolated or even eradicated. So it is worth investigation. We may need to find people (monks?) who have lived without exposure to people with dementia, an interesting anthropological problem imho.

There are some viruses that basically everyone gets that then lay latent for the rest of your life. So yes if one of those were a cause then epidemiological data wouldn't be much help.

Not a crazy thoery, one of the complications of measles is a fatal encephalitis that occurs 5-20 years later.

Be nice if they figured it out, Alzheimer's Disease means years of suck quality of life for everyone.

Infectious etiology is not the same as being contagious. We know HPV causes increased cancer risk, but we don't treat folks with those cancers as contagious. They're not. But their malignancies do have an infectious cause - infection earlier in life. That's the relationship being proposed here with Alzheimer's. Understanding the nature of a disease is a prerequisite for developing better treatments. We should not the imaginary social fears of the uninformed get in the way of that exploration.

And that is but one reason why our system of health care is immoral. Not amoral. People who are sick, their families watching, are not able to make rational economic decisions. These things should be decided when we are rational, as a society, and my preference is the "veil of ignorance" approach provided by John Rawls. If you don't know what disease you get, what your native tongue is, whether you're rich or poor, whether you're Muslim or atheist, man or woman or agender or other, family person or nomad - what kind of society would you want to build, and how should and would that society treat everyone as fairly as possible.

There is an exploitation in waiting, literally waiting, for people to get sick to have this conversation and decision making, as if health care is a product like any other, where some people will choose to buy even a chance, and others will admit defeat even with decent odds of success just because they can't afford it.

But we also take it farther, where a bulk of the cost and the cost increases, are masked from the actual consumer by employer paid health care. Every single time I talk to people who do not buy their own "aging and sick care maintenance plan" I'm impressed by how incredibly ignorant they are of cost. Average cost for a sore throat doctor visit, $603. If you aren't shopping, or aren't able to shop, how is this in any way an informed free market? It's like we've gone both anti-socialism and anti-capitalism at the same time to come up with the world's worst possible way of doing health care.

Imagine being behind the veil of ignorance and saying: only rich people should not have to worry about their health and sickness and aging, the middle class and poor properly should always wonder. And if really bad things happen through no fault of their own, they should properly be bankrupt. And none of this should be transparent or obvious or understandable by the average person. That is a good society that builds trust.

Of course no one would say that, except maybe comedians and wicked people.

I haven't thought or Rawls in quite a while.

The idea of a "veil of ignorance" as a mode of capturing the implications of some political position is a useful, wide-ranging, and easily digestible ethical concept; I'm going to add it back into my intellectual tool bag for when I am trying to discuss ethics with folks.

Thanks for the reminder.

If anyone has been looking at TauRX's phase 3 trials[1], methylene blue is ridiculously cheap, has been around for 100 years and stops Alzheimers progression better than any other drug. Tau is working on a slightly modified form that is basically putting it in a capsule and they'll sell it for $50 a pill probably, but that's the only way that anyone will believe it actually works.

Methylene blue is a potent antimicrobial that easily penetrates the blood brain barrier, so it working so well would be consistent with Alzheimers being an infectious disease.

[1]https://content.iospress.com/download/journal-of-alzheimers-...

thanks for your post. That would be funny if the cure is to drink the "Methylene Blue Kool Aid"

Methylene blue is also an monoamine oxidase inhibitor. I add it to my dog’s food to boost her metabolism. She blew her knee out a year ago (common injury for large 10yo dogs) but has mostly recovered without the surgery the vet said she’d probably need. (I use a variety of interventions with her.)

Methylene blue should not be combined with the later anti-depressants that focus more on serotonin (SSRIs, etc.), as this can cause serotonin toxicity: https://www.apsf.org/article/methylene-blue-and-the-risk-of-...

> Tau is working on a slightly modified form that is basically putting it in a capsule and they'll sell it for $50 a pill probably, but that's the only way that anyone will believe it actually works.

Patent medicines [1] are still as popular as they ever were. Science made some inroads in the early 20th century, before the hucksters regrouped, with new prescription-only FDA approved nostrums.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_medicine

Other studies of mild to moderate Alzheimer's patients showed no improvement with Methylene blue,

https://www.alzforum.org/news/conference-coverage/first-phas...

Also I'd generally be more skeptical as the green urine it produces could be a strong placebo enhancer that is hard to control against.

Monochromatic red light in the bathroom should take care of placebo problem? Or red glasses, something like that. Maybe artificial piss color.

This is not specific to Alzheimer but applies to the general concept of market-driven medical research.

Cortexyme is starting a phase II trial for their drug COR388 soon which is a targeted anti-microbial for a specific organism which they have identified as Alzheimer's related and believe is the cause of Alzheimers. They should have some results in the next year or so. See here for more info.

https://www.cortexyme.com/news

So, NPR still doesn't link properly from the data protection choice page to the plain text site...

Here is the plain text version:

https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=645629133

Prior discussions (not the same link) on HN, posted for reference because they touch on the past research that was previously posted here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17446016

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17540512

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17540094 (this is the parent link for the antiviral risk reduction study -- a good read, comments and source article)

There's a decent amount of reading when scholar-googling:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=hsv1+alzheimers

I can't find it now, but there's also a past HN discussion about a week prior to the HSV/HHV causative study that points to the function of beta-amyloid as potentially to tangle and disable Herpes in the brain, leading one to believe that β-Amyloid overproduction and its associated side-effects may potentially be a trade for substantially longer life and a slower passing versus a more immediate exit through e.g. encephalitis from an active infection.

https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(18)30526-9 (study link)

There's also research pointing to sleep's function as helping clear out plaques such as beta-amyloid.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16026655

Finally, there's at least a bit of research pointing to boosted susceptibility of herpes viral infections when carrying ApoE4:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=hsv1+apoe4

The novel conclusion from all of this, which I suspect is being actively investigated, is that there's a potentially complicated interplay of an enhanced viral infection (HSV/HHV enabled by ApoE4) + evolutionary defense going into overdrive (β-Amyloid) + sleep deprivation keeping the body from clearing out the residue -> disease.

---

I'm particularly motivated to track this research because of its prevalence in my family background and because, from what I can tell, I've thus far managed to avoid the environmental trigger-pull. I can already tell you I'll probably go on (val)acyclovir lifetime if I'm ever diagnosed with any particular strain, as it looks like active infection, with outbreaks, is what's likely to act as the first domino to tip.

How would you know if you had HSV? My impression was that a lot of infections are so mild that those with them don't realize they had it.

The causative study pointed to people who were specifically diagnosed. There's a probable difference in shed-rates in people who have recurring outbreaks v. people who don't.

I believe there's also a difference in outbreak rates in people who have ApoE4 v. people who don't, but I shouldn't be quoted on that. But you're right in asking, and the answer is probably to go to a doctor if you see new sores and get on the antivirals if you're diagnosed.

> How would you know if you had HSV? My impression was that a lot of infections are so mild that those with them don't realize they had it.

That's true. There's a blood test you can do, though.

My understanding is that the (old?) test is sensitive to both HSV1 (oral cold sores) as well as HSV2 (genital) because their protein coats are similar... so if you have cold sores you'll test positive even if you don't have HSV2. Of course their effect on the brain could be similar... although more than 50% of people have HSV1.

This will be difficult. Everyone technically has HSV, it's just part of the environment, like E. coli. So the question may end up turning - do you give a medicine long-term to suppress existing HSV "flora" in the body/restore the immune system's ability to do so, vs. the side effects of such meds. Some people are on long-term acyclovir or valacyclovir, at the risk of increased strain on the kidneys, etc.

Evidence of previous HSV infection can be obtained by a laboratory blood test for antibodies to HSV-1 and/or HSV-2 (IgG for past infections, IgM for more recent infections.)

Thanks for all the info! Would you mind expanding in the valacyclovir lifetime treatment? What is that?

If you never notice any active infections then you think you’re pretty safe?

Not a doctor; can't give you medical advice. Just giving deductions I'm making based on current research which could all play out to be very, very wrong.

Valacyclovir is brand-named Valtrex. Basically, if you're ever diagnosed with herpes of any variant, you should ask your doctor about what to expect if you go on Valacyclovir to ward off recurring outbreaks. If those side effects don't sound disagreeable to you v. the possible mitigation of dementia/alzheimer's, then it might make sense to go on it.

The risk reduction study (https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322463.php) focused on a population which had specifically been diagnosed.

Thanks. What’s your take on this article:

https://jeffreydachmd.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Efficac...

Maybe you should get this vaccine instead of valtrex? Or both?

I've got the former. I'd personally still also do the latter. Consider me paranoid, but if diagnosed, I'm sold on the side effects of a lifetime of valacyclovir being far less inconvenient than a descent into oblivion.

Wait, is that a cure for herpes?

No, sadly. Just a vaccine for varicella.

So how do you explain the results:

"Results: From 2005 through 2011, for the 24 anti-VZV vaccinated patients, the average number of herpes relapses decreased to 0, correlated with an increased anti-VZV antibody level and clinical recovery of all patients, whereas no improvement was observed for the 26 nonvaccinated herpes patients."

A cure for herpes means the excision of viral DNA from the infected cells. Herpes is one of those viruses that stays with a person for life by means of establishing persistence with DNA insertion.

Because of this, any cure will probably rely on CRISPR/Cas9 or variants of this process. E.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29844277

What you're drawing attention to there, if I'm reading it correctly, is that the presence of the antibodies resulting from the vaccine enables an immune response to consistently check an outbreak just as it's starting, potentially mitigating an outbreak before one becomes visibly apparent.

But I'm probably not reading it correctly. All I'm confident in is that anything short of literally cutting the viral DNA out of the infected cells won't actually cure an infection.

This isn't a rigorous scientific forum.

Definition of "cure":

verb 1. relieve (a person or animal) of the symptoms of a disease or condition. "he was cured of the disease" synonyms: heal, restore to health, make well/better; archaic: cleanse "after a long course of treatment, he was cured"

I'm referring to the colloquial usage of "cure", which is all anyone cares about in this context. Who cares if the DNA is there if the symptoms are completely gone?

Herpes sheds asymptomatically, and it can still infect neighboring cells as a result. Just because an outbreak isn't visible e.g. because the immune system counteracts it early on doesn't mean the virus isn't still spreading.

Like I said, unless the viral dna is excised, you'll always have it.

As an aside, you're aiming for the term "functionally cured." Since the virus could still shed... even that's not achieved here.

You seem really knowledgeable about this stuff. I’d be curious what diet you’d recommend for a two copy apoe4?

Not an expert, but probably should avoid arginine and take more lysine.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19288025

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3115841

Anyway, I think it's about time we get some big-data results on diet and illness. Question is: where is the data and how do we get access?

Doesn’t that abstract say that arginine inhibits hsv?

I don't know if I've ever followed specific dietary recommendations, but a quick Google Scholar search seems to find multiple independent conclusions supporting unsaturated fatty acids. Easiest way to hit that would be to pursue a Mediterranean diet, and also possibly more fish/seafood (https://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-alzheimers-...).

"Do as I say, not as I do." My diet is awful mostly because food is my vice.

Amelius replied to you with possible recommendations for reducing HSV risk in a dietary manner. I'll take a read too.

> I can't find it now, but there's also a past HN discussion about a week prior to the HSV/HHV causative study that points to the function of beta-amyloid as potentially to tangle and disable Herpes in the brain

I believe this is the discussion you were thinking of?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17540094#17540106

Crohn's is another inflammatory disease that has long been suspected by some researchers to be infectious. The company RedHill Biopharma just showed that a combination of generic antibiotics could be as effective as Humira, the highest gross-selling drug in the world, at treating the condition.

https://www.redhillbio.com/RedHill/Templates/showpage.asp?DB...

I keep seeing news about severe impacts of chronic infections that we aren't good at testing for, and aren't good at treating. Gut microbes that cause cancer, only just recently deciding that HPV's cancer risk to men was significant, and chronic Lyme disease are some examples.

This article cites the historic example of peptic ulcers, which the medical community didn't believe were caused by an infection, until after Barry Marshall infected himself with H. pylori in 1984, developed disease, and treated himself for it with antibiotics. Marshall and his partner won a Nobel Prize for this work.

Lots of information out there. I feel as though my mother who I love dearly might be starting to experience the first stages of alzheimers. She's healthy, but otherwise not doing anything to take care of the condition. Given the current stage of research/etc, what could I do to best protect her? Should I be pushing her towards certain docs or clinical studies? Any direction would be appreciated. We live in Seattle.

Eat more curry is one.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/909678/dementia-cure-curcu...

Thank you.

Curry is anti-inflammatory. There are studies on how the Mediterranean diet helps protect against brain inflammation. They are usually about depression, not Alzheimer's, and they typically claim that consumption of olive oil and fresh fruits and veggies are big factors.

Those might provide clues for you to start your search.

When my dad had Alzheimer's, I think they also gave him a children's aspirin (or possibly some other otc med) daily to help reduce his issues and help keep him more manageable. That might be another thing you could look up.

I recall seeing a remark on HN about Bill Gates, Alzheimer's and walking, though I can't find a citation. I recall someone saying something like "It would be great to be able to tell my mom to walk more because Bill Gates said so."

Walking is something I know to be hugely beneficial to various things. I would absolutely look for research that connects walking and protection against dementia if it were me.

Best.

Thank you, appreciate that a lot! My mom already eats pretty healthy and exercises regularly, but I'll try to point her to specific foods. I am somewhat surprised with all the research about that there's no prescription drugs or similar items that may be beneficial.

"Life is chemistry"

"Let your food be your medicine"

I started with anti-inflammatory medication for my condition and inferred that an anti-inflammatory diet might help me get off the drugs. It did.

I think an anti-inflammatory diet is a superior solution

Best.

So does this throw the type three diabetes theory out the window?

Nothing is out the window- Alzheimers is still extremely mysterious. There are fungal, infectious, prion, plaque, vascular, diabetes etc. etc. etc. Theories that are all remarkably reasonable. The only thing thats really changed recently is that the most recent frontrunning treatment, an amyloid-related drug, didnt help.

Maybe it's a combination of different theories. Maybe having a certain virus with "type three" diabetes, with certain genetics triggers it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com