The cause of Alzheimer’s and the best course of treatment still remains elusive to doctors, but there’s new scientific evidence that suggests a virus known to us all may have a role in development of the condition.
Researchers revealed strong evidence in a study published last Thursday in the journal Neuron1 that two strains of the human herpes virus — 6A and 72 — could be a contributing factor in Alzheimer’s, the disease that robs people of their memory and cognitive functions and that can have such a dramatic impact in the course of inheritance disputes.
According to the Alzheimer’s Association, someone in the United States develops Alzheimer’s every 65 seconds, and by midcentury that number is expected to increase by every 33 seconds. Comprehending this urgency, scientists are racing against the clock to better understand the disease and hopefully find a cure or at the very least, effective treatment. Astoundingly, Alzheimer’s is the only disease in the top 10 U.S. causes of death that does not have noteworthy treatment available. In the context of this blog on will contests and trust contests, the absence of treatment is of significant consequence to families in the midst of an estate dispute.
Researchers in the new study examined data on 622 brains from people who had signs of the disease and 322 from people who did not seem affected by it. The brains with Alzheimer’s had levels of the herpes virus that were up to twice as high as people who did not have the disease.
For some time, scientists have believed that viruses3 can play a role in the development of Alzheimer’s. Primarily, the theory is that Alzheimer’s starts in the brain as a response to damage from the virus.
“I don’t think we can answer whether herpes viruses are a primary cause of Alzheimer’s disease,” Joel Dudley, a geneticist and co-author on the study, said in a statement. “But what’s clear is that they’re perturbing networks and participating in networks that directly accelerate the brain towards the Alzheimer’s topology.” Dudley is a member of the ASU-Banner Neurodegenerative Disease Research Center.
This new study could help scientists identify virus biomarkers in the brain that could one day help diagnose the disease and assess a person’s risk. Dudley has hopes it could be the start of research that would provide new targets in the brain for drugs to treat the condition.
“This is the most compelling evidence ever presented that points to a viral contribution to the cause or progression of Alzheimer’s,” said study co-author Dr. Sam Gandy, a professor of neurology and psychiatry and director of the Center for Cognitive Health at Mount Sinai in New York.
However, the scientists caution that this discovery should not result in mass hysteria. While this particular set of herpes viruses is common, with 90% of adults having been exposed to the virus by age 504, not all of them will go on to develop dementia.
More research is obviously needed in order to prove a definitive connection between herpes viruses and Alzheimer’s. But it is a very important step in Alzheimer’s research, opening the door for scientists to find new antiviral or immune therapies that can treat and may even in the future prevent the disease.
Sources:
1 http://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(18)30421-5
2https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27337451
3https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1046/j.1474-9728.2003.00069.x