Cold Sore Virus May Be Alzheimer's Smoking Gun

Science Daily is reporting that the virus behind cold sores has been found to be a major cause of the insoluble protein plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer's disease sufferers. Researchers believe the herpes simplex virus is a significant factor in developing the debilitating disease and could be treated by antiviral agents such as acyclovir, which is already used to treat cold sores and other diseases caused by the herpes virus. Another future possibility is vaccination against the virus to prevent the development of Alzheimer's in the first place. The research was just published in the Journal of Pathology (abstract).

Comments

Re:What about heredity?

[osu-neko]

Rule of thumb: When someone is trying to explain the "cause" of something, and they have mentioned less than a dozen different things, they're oversimplifying.

Re:Anti-vaccine crowd?

[nog_lorp]

Actually, I would say it is the exact same thing, refusing possibly life-saving modern medicine to their children based on unfounded religious beliefs.

Not to mention, the argument that HPV vaccination will "Lower the perceived risk of engaging in sex" is complete BS. Word wide, throughout history, no teenager in the world has ever thought - "I want to have unprotected sex... but I might get Human PapillomaVirus!" The health related factors that lead to the choice of abstinence are more along the lines of pregnancy, HIV, and genital herpes. The truth is, it is not about prevention it is about punishment. HPV vaccination isn't going to have any affect on decision-making, but it reduces the chance the people will die for screwing around, and religious fundamentalists don't want that.

Furthermore, even if you believe there is any morality to this argument, it is still baseless due to the fact that sexual contact is not the only way to get a virus, even blood-born ones. If your daughter steps on a used needle in the sand at the beach, and catches HPV, and dies of cervical cancer, what have you achieved? You are responsible for her death. Furthermore, refusal to vaccinate against STDs is tantamount to blaming the victim for rape, as this is a common avenue for infection.

If it wasn't clear already, I feel strongly that anyone who would advocate against immunizations for 'moral reasons' is morally despicable.

Re:What about heredity?

[TheRaven64]

Many of the diseases that are more common now affect relatively old people. If you have a disease that rarely kills anyone under the age of 40, you will have seen a marked increase in it over the last hundred years or so.

Several forms of cancer are good examples of this. They are a lot more prevalent now than a century ago because few people lived long enough to develop them to a fatal degree. When comparing infection statistics, also compare age ranges. If diseases are more common in the 30-40 age range than they were, then you might want to worry.