You'll want your doctor to know what to do with this to prevent your getting dementia.
Your chances of getting dementia.
1. A documented 33% dementia chance post-stroke from an Australian study? May 2012.
2. Then this study came out and seems to have a range from 17-66%. December 2013.
3. A 20% chance in this research. July 2013.
4. Dementia Risk Doubled in Patients Following Stroke September 2018
5. Parkinson’s Disease May Have Link to Stroke March 2017
The latest here:
Scientists Confirm: Herpes Virus Implicated in Alzheimer’s Disease
A coalition of scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine in New York City and Arizona State University, collected over 2,000 post-mortem tissue samples from 944 brains held at several brain banks funded by the US National Institute of Aging, which also provided money for the study. Some of the brain samples had the tell-tale amyloid plaques and tau buildups found in Alzheimer’s disease and some had signs of other cognitive impairments. Others were “control” patients with healthy brain function. What they discovered is groundbreaking news for scientists and any lives touched Alzheimer’s disease. They published their results in the science journal, Neuron, last week.The herpes viruses
There are 9 herpes viruses known to man but when people think of herpes, they usually think of sexually transmitted diseases and unsightly cold sores erupting from infected lips. Those are the herpes viruses, HSV1 and HSV2. The peculiar thing about any herpes virus is its ability to go dormant in the body only to reawaken later and begin reproducing all over again causing diseases like shingles. In fact, the name herpes is derived from the Greek word meaning, “to creep” because of their ability to creep up nerves and plant themselves on our spines and in some instances, even our brains, probably having an effect on Alzheimer’s disease.
Although the research team found over 500 types of viruses present in those 2,000 brains, the two forms of herpes virus – HHVA6 and 7 – were found in particularly high concentrations in the brains of individuals with Alzheimer’s. After their dormant stage, they start actively reproducing and appear to speed up the Alzheimer’s-related protein build ups that ultimately lead to the brain’s system failure. Although not causative, they are described as “putting gas on the flame,” by Joel Dudley, a geneticist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai in New York City, who described the virus as accelerating the disease. The study offers strong evidence that viral infections can influence its course.
Just an accident
Like the discovery of penicillin, many scientific discoveries are made by accident and this discovery is no different. The goal for this study was to identify new targets for drugs by using genetic data to look for differences between healthy brain tissue and brain tissue from those who had developed Alzheimer’s. Dudley says that, “Viruses were the last thing we were looking for.” But when they began to analyze the differences, “it just sort of came screaming out at us from the data.” The two human herpes viruses HHV6 and HHV7 were twice as high in brain tissue from people with Alzheimer’s!
Once they knew this, the next step was to find out how the viruses could affect the course of a brain disease. In order to do this, they set about identifying interactions between virus genes and other genes in the brains cells by mapping out a kind of social network between the two. Dudley wanted to know, “If the viruses are tweeting, who’s tweeting back?”
What they found were that the herpes virus genes were interacting with genes known to both increase a person’s risk for Alzheimer’s and to make a person’s brain more vulnerable to infection with HHV6 and HHV7. Just having the virus present in the brain isn’t enough to cause Alzheimer’s. Something needs to activate the virus out of its dormancy. To date, that activating factor has not been found but Dudley is hopeful and suspects some internal function of the brain cells is the cause. Still, because of the importance of this finding, we are two steps closer to finding a way to slow and maybe even stop the progression of the disease.
Research
1. Multiscale Analysis of Independent Alzheimer’s Cohorts Finds Disruption of Molecular, Genetic, and Clinical Networks by Human Herpesvirus. Neuron.
https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(18)30421-5
2. Herpes Viruses Implicated in Alzheimer’s Disease. The Scientist. June, 21, 2018
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/herpes-viruses-implicated-in-alzheimer-s-disease-64246
3. Researchers Find Herpes Viruses In Brains Marked By Alzheimer’s Disease. NPR. June 21, 2018.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/06/21/621908340/researchers-find-herpes-viruses-in-brains-marked-by-alzheimers-disease
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