Shingles (Herpes zoster) is implicated. The whole 'lifelong nervous system infection' does seem a bit awful. I bet if we chip away at new kinds of herpes viruses, we'll find a fairly drastic reduction in Alzheimers.
"There is mounting evidence that herpes [simplex]
leads to Alzheimers", so, HSV1/2 also.
And apparently having APOE4 genome makes it all worse. HSV1+APOE4=12x risk.
Chicken pox doesn't impact HSV1/2 which a lot of people have and is also implicated in this analysis. There is, however, a doctor working on a cure and vaccine for HSV1/2 that will hopefully be available within the decade.
Unfortunately, there are several others that can be asymptomatic.
"Nine herpesvirus types are known to primarily infect humans... More than 90% of adults have been infected with at least one of these, and a latent form of the virus remains in almost all humans who have been infected."
No idea about the doctor, but Biontech is starting clinical trials [1], and there are a host of other vaccine candidates. Some Russians claim they developed a cure as well [2].
There's a sub reddit I discovered tracking HSV vaccine progress (HSV cure research)
Unfortunately the most promising doctor that was working on a vaccine was only able to show efficacy of 50% in mice. A recent study also showed HSV likely infects more than just cells near the brain. Potentially immune cells too.
Gsk is working on one. Would be interesting to see the results soon. This is a tough nut to crack and clearly not enough money being funneled by governments, as another person mentioned we have almost 3x the amount we spent on covid for a new war.
Somewhere on the internet is a website that is keeping track of everyone working on HSV-1 and HSV-2 treatments, but I’m not able to find it just now. There are several entities working on HSV-1 and HSV-2 vaccines.
It's very very unlikely that chickenpox vax will eliminate Alzheimer's, both in terms of chickenpox vaccine effectiveness, as well as there are almost certainly non-VZV "causes" for Alzhiemer's.
But yes, it's quite likely that widespread chickenpox vaccine will help reduce Alzheimer's rates.
It'd probably be a few more decades before you'd expect the cohort that received childhood chickenpox vaccines to reach an age where we'd see siginficant rates of Alzheimer's. Even then, it would it'd probably be quite difficult to disentangle.
Their idea in mentioning the chickenpox vaccine is that if the shingles vaccine is effective against dementia in this way, then you'd expect an even greater effect from kids generally having gotten the chickenpox vaccine and therefore not getting infected with the varicella zoster virus in the first place.
This research indicates that the chickenpox/shingles virus may be related to about 20% of dementia cases - so not all Alzheimer's but an appreciable amount.
It could be that other cases are caused by other Herpes viruses, or maybe Epstein Barr - vaccines for those may reduce it even more
If you mean the vaccine leads to shingles in those who receive it, I don't think there is evidence for that. When I had shingles in my early 40s, my doctor did mention that she is seeing it occur earlier in adults who never received the vaccine. The working theory was that we don't come in contact with the virus nearly as much as we used to and our immune systems can't suppress it as easily when it flares up. I don't know if that's actually been studied though.
The anti vax screw will probably wonder if injecting the vaccine actually increases your odds of Alzheimers since you're getting a partial version of the virus when doing so.
Not really. They used the cutoff date to develop a theory. That is, those before the date couldn't get the vax vs those after the date that did.
So far, so good.
However, not everyone after the date got the vax. That is, like tge before date "control" there are a post-date group who also did not get the vax. Oddly, there's no mention how this group fared.
Obviously, they know this group exist. And that the initial theory would be ideal to apply to this group. That didn't happen.
That would be definite. As it is, a key and obvious piece is missing.
It's boring flamebait. I don't disagree with you but I've read this comment a hundred times and it doesn't seem especially necessary in this conversation compared to any other.
You're probably getting downvoted by: 1. antivaxxers (there's a pile of them here on HN). 2. toxic positivity (people who think you are the problem because you're being so negative). 3. reading comprehension challenged (lots of people just don't parse sarcasm and irony well at all). Those three add up to a lot.
First on the list is probably the folks who are tired of reading uninspired political comments about the opposition. Whether I agree with the sentiment or not, I can recognize that it serves no useful purpose. Nobody who reads what I write here is going to change their ideology as a result.
I think you might be getting the down votes because antivaxers will always find a way to justify their vaccine fears, so it is futile to insert them into the discussion when it isn’t about them.
It's one thing for people to lie and/or believe lies, it's another thing for someone to profit off those lies and steer people towards them on a medium that claims to be a communications platform to keep in touch with friends & family.
“ With childhood varicella vaccination in the United States have come concerns that the incidence of herpes zoster may increase, because of diminishing natural exposure to varicella and consequent reactivation of latent varicella zoster virus.”
“As the rates of VRHDs and the associated charges have decreased, there has been a significant increase in HZHDs and associated charges, disproportionately among older adults.”
The chickenpox vaccine absolutely decreases the chances of the people getting the vaccine of getting dementia. This has a side-effect of decreasing the exposure of older adults to new chickenpox infections, which increases their odds of developing shingles.[1]
But as long as those older adults are getting the shingle vaccine, their odds of getting dementia should reduce as well.
[1] - Intermittent infection with chickenpox boosts the adaptive immune response to the chronic chickenpox infection that most people who ever caught the disease have. This intermittent boosting helps prevent flareups of the chronic chickenpox infection (also known as shingles), which is likely the causative factor in chickenpox-related dementia. Alternatively, instead of getting intermittently infected with chickenpox, they could just get a shingles vaccine instead to boost their immune response against their previously acquired chronic infection.
I presume that this intermittent exposure to chickenpox is greatest in adults with children (and grandchildren). Possibly explaining the decrease in dementia for older people with adult children: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235282732...
> Having 3+ children, adult daughter(s), or biological children was associated with lower risk of cognitive impairment.
> The chickenpox vaccine absolutely decreases the chances of the people getting the vaccine of getting dementia.
I'm a bit too certain with this phrasing. This should be theoretically the case given that vaccination decreases the odds of getting a chronic herpes zoster infection.
Never getting the virus is always better. The chickenpox vaccine helps prevent chronic viral infection.
Assuming you're asking about whether shingles vaccination is comparable to re-exposure.
For the youth a vaccine should absolutely reduce the risk better than having a chronic infection to actively fight against when it flares up.
For non-chickenpox-vaccinated adults, I have no clue. I would expect shingles vaccination would be comparable as it effectively does the same thing. But there might be an added response from other parts of the adaptive immune response against a viral invader.
Regardless, with respect to the chickenpox vaccine, I think it's better to take a risk on the current middle-aged folks and elderly in favor of basically eliminating all of the risk for the young and future generations. Since this risk increase would be primarily for middle-aged folks and elderly who have children and grandchildren (as childless adults are already at increased risk from fewer re-exposure routes), I think it makes moral sense that they preference the health of their descendants over themselves.
The vaccine may indirectly increase the risk that people who did not receive the vaccine get shingles. As far as we know, people who got the chickenpox generally don’t get shingles.
"There is mounting evidence that herpes [simplex] leads to Alzheimers", so, HSV1/2 also.
And apparently having APOE4 genome makes it all worse. HSV1+APOE4=12x risk.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181022-there-is-mountin...
EDIT: for clarity, the twitter thread showed that the shingles vaccine drastically reduces risk