A Common Virus May Play Role in Alzheimer's Disease, Study Finds

[Mosby]

It has long been a controversial theory about Alzheimer’s disease, often dismissed by experts as a sketchy cul-de-sac off the beaten path from mainstream research.

But a new study by a team that includes prominent Alzheimer’s scientists who were previously skeptics of this theory may well change that. The research offers compelling evidence for the idea that viruses might be involved in Alzheimer’s, particularly two types of herpes that infect most people as infants and then lie dormant for years.

The study, published Thursday in the journal Neuron, found that viruses interact with genes linked to Alzheimer’s and may play a role in how Alzheimer’s develops and progresses.

The authors emphasized they did not find that these viruses cause Alzheimer’s. But their research, along with another soon-to-be-published study, suggests that viruses could kick-start an immune response that might increase the accumulation of amyloid, a protein in human brains which clumps into the telltale plaques of Alzheimer’s.

"These viruses are probably significant players in driving the immune system in Alzheimer’s,” said Joel Dudley, the study’s senior author and an associate professor of genetics and genomic sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. “I think they’re like gas on the flames of some pathology that may be immune-driven.”

If so, that could change the course of research and possibly lead to treatments and new ways of screening for the disease.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/21/health/alzheimers-virus-herpes.html

[question everything]

1. Only one problem: There is no evidence that accumulation of amyloid causes Alzheimer's

It has been frustrating that researchers, in academia and in pharmaceuticals have spent, wasted, really so many years and resources chasing a molecule that, at most, finds Alzheimer's a welcome home. There are many who do have the amyloid but have not shown a sign of dementia.

Yes, any new finding is welcomed but there is more than the amyloid molecule.

Personally, I would like researchers to view Alzheimer's as a collection of different diseases with different causes and paths that share the same symptoms. Thus, when a treatment, or a new finding, like the virus, affect only a fraction of the study, that this fraction should be considered as a sub population and be further studied.

Unfortunately, the pharmaceutical companies are hoping for a "blockbuster" that would treat all five million Americans and would bring millions.

OK, down from y soap box.