Yesterday I was reading an article in Discover Magazine about a possible viral cause for schizophrenia and MS. This got me thinking about AD. Below is an e-mail I sent to Dr. Torrey, the lead researcher, and his reply.
E. Fuller Torrey, MD Executive Director Stanley Medical Research Institute
Dear Dr. Torrey:
I have just read the article "The Insanity Virus" in the June 2010 issue of Discover Magazine. I got wondering if this virus concept for the cause of Schizophrenia and MS could also be applied to Alzheimer's Disease. My wife has AD. When she was a child she missed an entire year of school due to an acute ear infection. As you know, no one knows the cause of Alzheimer's Disease. Genetic factors have been suggested, but don't account for most cases. Based on the article in Discover, it seems reasonable to consider the possibility of a similar type virus being involved in Alzheimer's Disease. I would greatly appreciate your thoughts. I have access to a large number of patients with AD who could be questioned (or their families) about serious infectious illnesses in childhood
Thank you.
Marshall Smith, M.D.
Dear Dr. Smith,
You are correct that this route of inquiry is also needed for Alzheimer’s disease. The only researcher who has looked seriously at infectious agents is Ruth Itzhaki at Manchester (attached). Our laboratory at Johns Hopkins has accessed about 1000 Alzheimer’s sera with matched controls, and we expect to run these for a variety of infectious agents later this year, so we will see whether this should be pursued. This line of research has been curiously neglected for this disease.
That is interesting. My husband doesn't have AD but FTD but he had rheumatic fever as a child which caused him to not attend kindergarten. I wonder if there is a connection.
Wow, Marsh, very impressive. Imagine if a virus could cause dementia. Hopefully they will soon know. I just pray that unlike the common cold virus, this one would be more treatable.
Rheumatic fever is thought to follow strep throat. Strep is bacterial and so is staph. Does the theory apply only to viral infections or also to bacterial ones?
My DW cousin is convinced that her son, and my wife are in the condition they are in because of Lyme Disease. Her son my DW's godchild, suffers from seziures and symptoms of schizophrenia. She sent me this link http://www.lyme-disease-research-database.com/alan-macdonald-transcription.html
She also sent me The DVD of the movie "Under My Skin" The movie is about Lyme disease. Hmm...
Herpes virus is one that so many people have in various forms - cold or canker sores being the most common. If a virus could be I would lay my hopes on a form of that. I would think that would be an easy one - checking for the herpes virus in the brains that are donated.
March, I had to add to this one. In my past posts, I have talked about a tick with lyme being tested for and ruled out twice. Also, DH, who was never ill, missed a week of work about 11 or 12 years ago at the age of 43. At the time, we thought it was the flu. His pitutary tumor probably began about this time. So many of his health and personality problems also began around this time. I have told the doctor several times to recheck him for Lyme and have been told that if he was negative that he doesn't have it. In the beginning, when I was searching for reasons for his changes, the symptoms that I typed into the various sites pointed to Lyme also. Because it had been ruled out twice, I kept searching and found FTD as the cause. But, as you have said, something causes FTD and may be you are right about the viral cause.
My husband DID have lyme disease but it was caught at the tick bite and antibiotics started immediately. I don't THINK there were any long term effects. A lot of my friends on the Maine Island I visit in the summer caught it; there were deer and ticks which rode in on birds or wharf rats were the intermediary transmitters. I have a few friends who've had long hard bouts with it, though none with dementia.
Cold Sore Virus Linked To Alzheimer's Disease: New Treatment, Or Even Vaccine Possible
ScienceDaily (Dec. 7, 2008) — The virus behind cold sores is a major cause of the insoluble protein plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer's disease sufferers, University of Manchester researchers have revealed... Professor Ruth Itzhaki and her team at the University's Faculty of Life Sciences have investigated the role of herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV1) in AD, publishing their very recent, highly significant findings in the Journal of Pathology. Most people are infected with this virus, which then remains life-long in the peripheral nervous system, and in 20-40% of those infected it causes cold sores. Evidence of a viral role in AD would point to the use of antiviral agents to stop progression of the disease. The team discovered that the HSV1 DNA is located very specifically in amyloid plaques: 90% of plaques in Alzheimer's disease sufferers' brains contain HSV1 DNA, and most of the viral DNA is located within amyloid plaques. The team had previously shown that HSV1 infection of nerve-type cells induces deposition of the main component, beta amyloid, of amyloid plaques. Together, these findings strongly implicate HSV1 as a major factor in the formation of amyloid deposits and plaques, abnormalities thought by many in the field to be major contributors to Alzheimer's disease... http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081207134109.htm
"Eradication of Helicobacter pylori may be beneficial in the management of Alzheimer’s disease" Abstract: Infectious agents have been proposed as potential causes of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Recently, we documented a high prevalence of Helicobacter pylori (Hp) infection in patients with AD. We aim to access the effect of Hp eradication on the AD cognitive (MMSE: Mini Mental State Examination and CAMCOG: Cambridge Cognitive Examination for the Elderly) and functional (FRSSD: Functional Rating Scale for Symptoms of Dementia) status parameters. In the first part of the study, a total of 50 consecutive patients with AD and 30 age-matched anaemic controls underwent an upper gastrointestinal endoscopy, and gastric mucosal biopsies were obtained to detect the presence of Hp infection by histologic analysis and rapid urease test. Serum anti-Hp-specific IgG level was analysed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. In the second part, Hp-positive AD patients received a triple eradication regimen (omeprazole, clarithromycin and amoxicillin), and all patients were followed up for 2 years, while under the same treatment with cholinesterase inhibitors. Hp was detected in 88% of AD patients and in 46.7% of controls (P < 0.001). Hp eradication was successful in 84.8% of treated patients. At the 2-year clinical endpoint, cognitive and functional status parameters improved in the subgroup of patients where Hp eradication was successful (P < 0.001 and P = 0.049 for MMSE and CAMCOG, respectively; P < 0.001 for FRSSD), but not in the other patients. Hp eradication may positively influence AD manifestations, suggesting a possible common link between Hp and AD. http://www.springerlink.com/content/83147756538x7031/?p=4d07d65b60894df3bab4620921dcd1e6&pi=2
Researcher's labour of love leads to MS breakthrough André Picard and Avis Favaro
From Saturday's Globe and Mail Published on Friday, Nov. 20, 2009 9:07PM EST Last updated on Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2009 9:20PM EST
Elena Ravalli was a seemingly healthy 37-year-old when she began to experience strange attacks of vertigo, numbness, temporary vision loss and crushing fatigue. They were classic signs of multiple sclerosis, a potentially debilitating neurological disease.
It was 1995 and her husband, Paolo Zamboni, a professor of medicine at the University of Ferrara in Italy, set out to help. He was determined to solve the mystery of MS – an illness that strikes people in the prime of their lives but whose causes are unknown and whose effective treatments are few.
What he learned in his medical detective work, scouring dusty old books and using ultra-modern imaging techniques, could well turn what we know about MS on its head: Dr. Zamboni's research suggests that MS is not, as widely believed, an autoimmune condition, but a vascular disease.
Fighting for his wife's health, Dr. Zamboni looked for answers in the medical literature. He found repeated references, dating back a century, to excess iron as a possible cause of MS. The heavy metal can cause inflammation and cell death, hallmarks of the disease. The vascular surgeon was intrigued – coincidentally, he had been researching how iron buildup damages blood vessels in the legs, and wondered if there could be a similar problem in the blood vessels of the brain.
Using ultrasound to examine the vessels leading in and out of the brain, Dr. Zamboni made a startling find: In more than 90 per cent of people with multiple sclerosis, including his spouse, the veins draining blood from the brain were malformed or blocked. In people without MS, they were not.
He hypothesized that iron was damaging the blood vessels and allowing the heavy metal, along with other unwelcome cells, to cross the crucial brain-blood barrier. (The barrier keeps blood and cerebrospinal fluid separate. In MS, immune cells cross the blood-brain barrier, where they destroy myelin, a crucial sheathing on nerves.)
More striking still was that, when Dr. Zamboni performed a simple operation to unclog veins and get blood flowing normally again, many of the symptoms of MS disappeared. The procedure is similar to angioplasty, in which a catheter is threaded into the groin and up into the arteries, where a balloon is inflated to clear the blockages. His wife, who had the surgery three years ago, has not had an attack since.
The researcher's theory is simple: that the underlying cause of MS is a condition he has dubbed “chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency.” If you tackle CCSVI by repairing the drainage problems from the brain, you can successfully treat, or better still prevent, the disease...
My dh has osteomylitis (spelling?) in his left leg at 4th grade. He lost that year of school, and was in bed for that year. The infection went through several operations, and he was troubled with it until he was in his late 30's, I believe. It was finally cured with pennicillan. In fact, he was the first person to get penicillan in this state.
Because my arthritis has flared so violently within the past year, I went today (finally) to see my internist. I'll be getting a blood test to rule out Lyme Disease. But, she explained that if you have a tick bite and are tested within a relatively short period of time afterward, it is easily diagnosed. Not so if you wait. I get bitten by ticks all the time. She said it may be harder to find out if this is the cause for the alarming rate of progression of arthritis in my case. Also, there are all kinds of things Lyme can leave you with or be the cause of ...... dementia is just one.