Previous research has shown a link between certain viruses, including herpes, and Alzheimer’s disease. A new study conducted in the United States would tend to confirm the trail of the herpes virus as the cause.
Alzheimer’s disease affects nearly 850,000 patients in France and the 2 million mark could be reached by 2030. A real epidemic linked, among other things, to the aging of populations, age being the main risk factor for disease.
While no curative treatment yet exists for Alzheimer’s, pathogenic viruses including herpes type 6A and 7 are implicated in several studies as potential factors of the disease … and as therapeutic targets.
A new cause for Alzheimer’s disease?
Despite the many researches and advances on Alzheimer’s over the past 20 years, the causes of this disease are still unknown. While we better understand the processes that lead to the disorganization and death of neurons in the brain (amyloid plaques), we do not know what triggers this pathological mechanism.
Recently, however, several studies have revealed a link between this degenerative disease and herpes viruses types 6A and 7. The most recent, conducted by the Center for Research on Neurodegenerative Diseases at Arizona State University and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, published in the journal Neuron, would implicate this pathogenic virus.
Brain mapping
The researchers who, at the beginning, aimed to find new avenues of treatment for this disease, mapped 622 diseased brains and 322 “healthy” brains. All the data collected was then processed by various bioinformatics tools.
These tools detected much higher levels of herpes types 6A and 7 in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Ben Readhead, co-author of the study, said: “Not expected, we were very intrigued to find these pathogens.”
A new line of research
It remains to be seen whether this correlation between herpes and Alzheimer’s is a cause or a consequence of the disease. On this subject, Joel Dudley, co-author of the study and geneticist, stated in the daily geek show : “Previous studies on viruses and Alzheimer’s disease have always been very correlative.
But we were able to perform statistical causal inference tests and more sophisticated analyzes, which allowed us to identify the mechanisms of interaction with Alzheimer’s genes. We don’t think we can answer the question of whether these herpes viruses are a primary cause of Alzheimer’s disease. But what is clear is that they disrupt and participate in the networks that underpin the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease. “
Potential therapeutic applications
Recently, other researchers had found a clear link between treating herpes and reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. The study was carried out on 8,362 people, over the age of 50, recently diagnosed with severe cold sores and followed over a period of ten years. The results obtained were compared with those of a control group made up of 25,086 people without obvious herpes.
People with severe herpes had a 2.5 times higher risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease, but for those treated with antiviral treatment, the incidence of the disease was divided by ten!
Further additional work will therefore be necessary to clarify the role of herpes viruses in Alzheimer’s disease. But this is an interesting track to explain the frequency of Alzheimer’s cases in the same family, herpes is indeed a virus that spreads in families. If this link were certified, it would make it possible to look at a new therapeutic route to be used early in the course of the disease. In the meantime, early diagnosis of this disease allows patients to live with it better, longer!
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