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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).
Sounds like mom had the ol' pirate mouth.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
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.
Why is that exactly? Are you one of those people who failed math and therefore doesn't understand the difference between median and mean?
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.
Yup, looks like you failed math alright.
Allow me to ask you some questions:
Assume 50% of a population dies before they turn 2 years old. Assume the other 50% die at age 60. What is the average (mean) life exepctancy?
Now, 100 years later, only 1% die before they turn two, and 99% die at age 60. What is the average (mean) life expectancy?
Now, if your "magic" age is 40, and the only contributing factor is age, what percentage of the adult population (in each instance) will contract cancer?
If you get different answers for each group, you still fail, and need to go back to the beginning.