Comment by jvanderbot
2 years ago
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.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181022-there-is-mountin...
EDIT: for clarity, the twitter thread showed that the shingles vaccine drastically reduces risk
Does this mean the chickenpox vax will eliminate Alzheimer's? How many years til we know?
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."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herpesviridae
a doctor working on a cure and vaccine for HSV1/2
Can you share more information on this? Who is this doctor you're referring to?
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MMR-V was first approved in 2005 in the US. Alzheimer’s-type dementia usually has onset in the mid-60s and 70s.
However, there are other dementias (i.e. vascular) that have other etiologies.
Nitpicky, but the chicken pox vaccine came out in 1995 (not combined with MMR). So that’s 10 fewer years to wait :)
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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.
The vaccine likely won't eliminate the virus or the existing impacts of the virus.
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.
I think that Alzheimer's likely has many causes.
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
It was my understanding that shingles and chickenpox vaccination are positively correlated
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.
This raises a question that probably hasn't been answered yet: does the shingles vaccine prevent Alzheimers?
(Edit: sorry, I read the comments before reading the link)
"We estimate that over a 7-year follow-up period, getting vaccinated averts one in five new dementia diagnoses."
> does the shingles vaccine prevent Alzheimers?
That’s what the pre-print addressed.
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.
The data from this study is pretty definitive that it decreases your odds, not increases them.
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It would be ideal to wait for the people you hate to express the ideas you hate before hating them.
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And Facebook will be more than happy to promote and spread that lie. Imagine all the “engagement” they’ll get out of it.
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Seems the chickenpox vaccine actually does indirectly increase your chances of getting Alzheimer’s: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18999945/
“ 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.”
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