Yesterday we discussed research at Tufts and Oxford universities that found evidence for a mechanism by which two types of herpes viruses may work together to cause Alzheimer's disease. Most of our eggs have been in the amyloid research basket, but the amyloid scandal suggests we should be looking harder for causes in other places.
I sometimes think of Alzheimer's disease as a wound spring waiting to be released. And so the risk factors set up conditions where the spring can be released. But what could actually cut it loose? Pathogens is a good place to start, especially with the two herpes viruses studied in the research.
Yesterday, we also said that I continue to wonder why I developed Alzheimer's disease, when I don't have any of the conventionally identified risk factors. (Except that I lived a very sedentary lifestyle, and my diet wasn't very good.) But the question now occurs to me -- could it have been herpes?
As we discussed in Beating the Dementia Monster, the disease begins about 15 years before the first symptoms appear. And according to the recent research on herpes, episodes of shingles can cut the disease loose, triggering the generation of the characteristic amyloid plaques and tau tangles. Herpes simplex is resident in the brains of many people, and it is activated during episodes of shingles caused by herpes zoster. Herpes zoster may be acquired by a childhood chickenpox infection, but the virus then waits in the brain to later cause shingles.
Maybe that's what happened to me. I had chickenpox when I was five and then had shingles three time beginning when I was in my early 30s. But when was my last episode of shingles? If my disease started then, does it fit the 15 year timeline we described?
So this morning I started shuffling through my old medical records and found when I last had shingles. It was 2003, 12 years before my first symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. I'm thinking that's pretty darn close to the 15 years they talk about, and maybe that's the answer to my riddle. So, eureka.
Oh man, this scary. But it also might explain a few things.
ReplyDeleteMy father was diagnosed around 62 or 63 with Alzheimer's. I am 38, and I have contacted my doctor for a shingles shot as a result of this study.
ReplyDeleteI'm recovering from my first case of covid and many of my symptoms are also symptoms of viral encephalitis. I wonder whether in 10 or 12 years dimentia rates will skyrocket as a result of the pandemic.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2022/06/brain-fog-covid-chemo-brain.html