7 ms·

Could Alzheimer’s Stem from Infections?

128 points by Rezo 10y ago

moyix 10y ago
Some previous discussion of an earlier paper that suggested a fungal infection may be to blame: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10401344 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10401344 Very interesting to see more suggestive evidence from another group!
- mouse_potato 10y ago
  I've also read some autopsy reports that showed many patients had Lyme's disease.
  - nonbel 10y ago
    http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations It is best to assume "everything is correlated with everything else", rather than jump on every correlation. On the other hand it is important to encourage people to notice correlations and coincidences, but realize not every one can be followed up on, and most of these that are noticed will be only weakly involved in any solution. Really all we know at this point is that Alzheimer's disease is associated with the presence of more stuff that stains with antibodies raised towards Amyloid-beta aggregates than usual. It isn't even clear whether these are a cause or a symptom, nor whether these stains are near 100% specific towards beta-Amyloid (ie as derived from Amyloid precursor protein) rather than other aggregations of beta-sheets (like any prion "infection").
    - nonbel 10y ago
      What part of this triggered a downvote? Am I not up-to-date on the current status?
      - eru 10y ago
        It's best to disregard early downvotes. There was a mythical past when Hacker News was much smaller, when (early) downvotes meant something. But that's gone.
  - zzz157 10y ago
    Yes. 10/10 had it. Small sample size though, but, memory loss and dementia are late-stage symptoms of Lyme and associated coinfections. It makes a lot of sense. It seems like a simple study, to me, would be to take a bunch of early-stage Alzheimer's patients, give them Doxycycline/Tetracycline and observe them to see if they have a Jersch-Herxheimer reaction--https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarisch%E2%80%93Herxheimer_reaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarisch%E2%80%93Herxheimer_rea...
  - cstejerean 10y ago
    http://www.j-alz.com/content/study-disproves-link-between-lyme-disease-and-alzheimers http://www.j-alz.com/content/study-disproves-link-between-ly... A study looking at the rates of Lyne disease and Alzheimer's by state did not find a correlation. States where Lyme disease was more prevalent tended to actually have lower rates of Alzheimer's.
- Gatsky 10y ago
  That fungal paper was very tenuous. I would have rejected it if I was the reviewer.
  - LionessLover 10y ago
    Like I reject your comment - because it contains no information whatsoever apart from a very short opinion. If your own work is so shoddy, what conclusions can I draw about your criticism of others? A few reasons or a link that states them should have gone with your criticism.
    - isleyaardvark 10y ago
      You could have just asked "How so?"
      - LionessLover 10y ago
        Or I could have written: > Like I reject your comment - because it contains no information whatsoever apart from a very short opinion. If your own work is so shoddy, what conclusions can I draw about your criticism of others? A few reasons or a link that states them should have gone with your criticism. But thank you for uselessly pointing out options. You know, you could have taken a walk, eaten a sandwich, did some random activity, written a comment that's actually useful, or many other things. And yet you chose to write what you did, for some inexplicable reason.
        isleyaardvark 10y ago
        If you had just said "How so?", that would have been civil and possibly you would have learned his criticism. (It also would have followed this site's guidelines for commenting.) I don't know why you've chosen to be antagonist to both the other commenter and myself. How are you doing in your life? Are you under a lot of stress? Honest question.
    - Gatsky 10y ago
      My suggestion is to take a deep breath, then consider the net worth of your comment, then do one or all of the following: Read paper yourself. Google it. Look at the discussion in the previous HN thread, which is referenced in this thread.
hyperion2010 10y ago
Hypothesized awhile back, though the candidate is different. http://isteve.com/Infectious_Causation_of_Disease.pdf http://isteve.com/Infectious_Causation_of_Disease.pdf
jerryhuang100 10y ago
it looks like IMMUNOLOGY is going to rule them all (well, most) of the medicine: cardiovascular diseases, cancers, allergies, diabetes, and now Alzheimer's.
partiallypro 10y ago
UTIs can cause symptoms exactly like Alzheimer's, so I'm sure that sparked the idea. My grandmother actually developed Alzheimer's, I can't help but feel it might have been set on by a long standing UTI that the Dr never caught or treated (her Doctor was an old quack from everything I know.) Then again, her sister also has it, so it could also just be genetic. I do hope they figure it out, it's too late for my grandmother, but it's a big drain on everyone and when my grandmother does "break through" briefly, she is basically begging to die. Wouldn't wish it on anyone.
- nikmobi 10y ago
  just thinking out loud here, but since it seems that people with the disease can have a "break through", does that suggest that it's potentially reversible?
  - ekianjo 10y ago
    It's not reversible. The damage to the brain during the course of Alzheimer is destructive (causes your brain to shrink over time).
    - tim333 10y ago
      That's not necessarily true. It would presumably depend on how much damage was done. Here's some cases of improvement with turmeric, one of the spices in curry that has anti bacterial and anti fungal properties http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/turmeric-produces-remarkable-recovery-alzheimers-patients http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/turmeric-produces-remarkabl...
      - street 10y ago
        You're not exactly linking to the type of source you'd want to read for trustworthy scientific information. Unless your version of science says fluoride in drinking water is killing you, eating greens will cure cancer, and GMO's are horrible.
mirimir 10y ago
> The proteins were traditionally thought to be garbage that accumulates in the brain with age. OK, but now: > Not everyone who has had a brain infection develops Alzheimer’s, though. Why would some be more vulnerable than others? According to the new theory, it probably has to do with the brain’s ability to clear out the balls of beta amyloid after they have killed microbes, Dr. Tanzi said. For example, it is known that people with a gene called ApoE2 have brains that are good at sweeping out plaque, and have a low risk of Alzheimer’s in old age. Those with a different version, ApoE4, are inefficient in removing plaque and have a high risk of Alzheimer’s. "Clearing out" seems a lot like getting rid of garbage ;)
- jddjdbdbd3 10y ago
  I don't get your point. This is about the cause of the garbage. Garbage that once served a purpose is as much garbage as stuff that has never served a purpose.
- Sephr 10y ago
  ApoE 3 has also been associated with decreased plaque clearing ability, though not as significantly as ApoE 4.
  - tremon 10y ago
    As I understood from a BBC documentary last night, ApoE3 is considered the baseline as it's most prevalent. Having ApoE2 decreases the risk of Alzheimer's, while ApoE4 increases it.
- stuaxo 10y ago
  Does this mean there could be treatment that would clear them out ?
  - NoGravitas 10y ago
    Yes, there's work being done on developing immunological treatments for Alzheimer's. Work in animal models has been promising, but a viable treatment for humans is still a ways off. http://www.nature.com/nri/journal/v6/n5/abs/nri1843.html http://www.nature.com/nri/journal/v6/n5/abs/nri1843.html
mrfusion 10y ago
How would this jibe with the type 3 diabetes idea? I wonder.
riprowan 10y ago
I find it interesting that at one time, arterial "plaque" was also considered to be some sort of residue or trash. Analysis of the plaque revealed high levels of cholesterol, so the "trash" was obviously caused by the cholesterol, probably by eating too much of it. This message was no doubt approved by the tobacco industry, which produces a zero-cholesterol product that is nevertheless highly damaging to the arteries. Now many doctors have changed their understanding: arterial plaques are scar tissue and scar tissue happens to contain a lot of cholesterol. Anything that causes scarring - like high blood pressure - leaves these plaques. So really the plaques are the by-product of an underlying pathology, which themselves create a secondary pathology. Likewise, perhaps, with Alzheimer's. The plaques in the brain are themselves a by-product of some other pathology. Solve the underlying pathology (or the body's response to it), and you solve Alzheimer's.

128 points by Rezo 10y ago

moyix 10y ago

Some previous discussion of an earlier paper that suggested a fungal infection may be to blame: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10401344 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10401344 Very interesting to see more suggestive evidence from another group!

mouse_potato 10y ago
I've also read some autopsy reports that showed many patients had Lyme's disease.
- nonbel 10y ago
  http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations It is best to assume "everything is correlated with everything else", rather than jump on every correlation. On the other hand it is important to encourage people to notice correlations and coincidences, but realize not every one can be followed up on, and most of these that are noticed will be only weakly involved in any solution. Really all we know at this point is that Alzheimer's disease is associated with the presence of more stuff that stains with antibodies raised towards Amyloid-beta aggregates than usual. It isn't even clear whether these are a cause or a symptom, nor whether these stains are near 100% specific towards beta-Amyloid (ie as derived from Amyloid precursor protein) rather than other aggregations of beta-sheets (like any prion "infection").
  - nonbel 10y ago
    What part of this triggered a downvote? Am I not up-to-date on the current status?
    - eru 10y ago
      It's best to disregard early downvotes. There was a mythical past when Hacker News was much smaller, when (early) downvotes meant something. But that's gone.
- zzz157 10y ago
  Yes. 10/10 had it. Small sample size though, but, memory loss and dementia are late-stage symptoms of Lyme and associated coinfections. It makes a lot of sense. It seems like a simple study, to me, would be to take a bunch of early-stage Alzheimer's patients, give them Doxycycline/Tetracycline and observe them to see if they have a Jersch-Herxheimer reaction--https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarisch%E2%80%93Herxheimer_reaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarisch%E2%80%93Herxheimer_rea...
- cstejerean 10y ago
  http://www.j-alz.com/content/study-disproves-link-between-lyme-disease-and-alzheimers http://www.j-alz.com/content/study-disproves-link-between-ly... A study looking at the rates of Lyne disease and Alzheimer's by state did not find a correlation. States where Lyme disease was more prevalent tended to actually have lower rates of Alzheimer's.
Gatsky 10y ago
That fungal paper was very tenuous. I would have rejected it if I was the reviewer.
- LionessLover 10y ago
  Like I reject your comment - because it contains no information whatsoever apart from a very short opinion. If your own work is so shoddy, what conclusions can I draw about your criticism of others? A few reasons or a link that states them should have gone with your criticism.
  - isleyaardvark 10y ago
    You could have just asked "How so?"
    - LionessLover 10y ago
      Or I could have written: > Like I reject your comment - because it contains no information whatsoever apart from a very short opinion. If your own work is so shoddy, what conclusions can I draw about your criticism of others? A few reasons or a link that states them should have gone with your criticism. But thank you for uselessly pointing out options. You know, you could have taken a walk, eaten a sandwich, did some random activity, written a comment that's actually useful, or many other things. And yet you chose to write what you did, for some inexplicable reason.
      - isleyaardvark 10y ago
        If you had just said "How so?", that would have been civil and possibly you would have learned his criticism. (It also would have followed this site's guidelines for commenting.) I don't know why you've chosen to be antagonist to both the other commenter and myself. How are you doing in your life? Are you under a lot of stress? Honest question.
  - Gatsky 10y ago
    My suggestion is to take a deep breath, then consider the net worth of your comment, then do one or all of the following: Read paper yourself. Google it. Look at the discussion in the previous HN thread, which is referenced in this thread.

hyperion2010 10y ago

Hypothesized awhile back, though the candidate is different. http://isteve.com/Infectious_Causation_of_Disease.pdf http://isteve.com/Infectious_Causation_of_Disease.pdf

jerryhuang100 10y ago

it looks like IMMUNOLOGY is going to rule them all (well, most) of the medicine: cardiovascular diseases, cancers, allergies, diabetes, and now Alzheimer's.

partiallypro 10y ago

UTIs can cause symptoms exactly like Alzheimer's, so I'm sure that sparked the idea. My grandmother actually developed Alzheimer's, I can't help but feel it might have been set on by a long standing UTI that the Dr never caught or treated (her Doctor was an old quack from everything I know.) Then again, her sister also has it, so it could also just be genetic. I do hope they figure it out, it's too late for my grandmother, but it's a big drain on everyone and when my grandmother does "break through" briefly, she is basically begging to die. Wouldn't wish it on anyone.

nikmobi 10y ago
just thinking out loud here, but since it seems that people with the disease can have a "break through", does that suggest that it's potentially reversible?
- ekianjo 10y ago
  It's not reversible. The damage to the brain during the course of Alzheimer is destructive (causes your brain to shrink over time).
  - tim333 10y ago
    That's not necessarily true. It would presumably depend on how much damage was done. Here's some cases of improvement with turmeric, one of the spices in curry that has anti bacterial and anti fungal properties http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/turmeric-produces-remarkable-recovery-alzheimers-patients http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/turmeric-produces-remarkabl...
    - street 10y ago
      You're not exactly linking to the type of source you'd want to read for trustworthy scientific information. Unless your version of science says fluoride in drinking water is killing you, eating greens will cure cancer, and GMO's are horrible.

mirimir 10y ago

> The proteins were traditionally thought to be garbage that accumulates in the brain with age. OK, but now: > Not everyone who has had a brain infection develops Alzheimer’s, though. Why would some be more vulnerable than others? According to the new theory, it probably has to do with the brain’s ability to clear out the balls of beta amyloid after they have killed microbes, Dr. Tanzi said. For example, it is known that people with a gene called ApoE2 have brains that are good at sweeping out plaque, and have a low risk of Alzheimer’s in old age. Those with a different version, ApoE4, are inefficient in removing plaque and have a high risk of Alzheimer’s. "Clearing out" seems a lot like getting rid of garbage ;)

jddjdbdbd3 10y ago
I don't get your point. This is about the cause of the garbage. Garbage that once served a purpose is as much garbage as stuff that has never served a purpose.
Sephr 10y ago
ApoE 3 has also been associated with decreased plaque clearing ability, though not as significantly as ApoE 4.
- tremon 10y ago
  As I understood from a BBC documentary last night, ApoE3 is considered the baseline as it's most prevalent. Having ApoE2 decreases the risk of Alzheimer's, while ApoE4 increases it.
stuaxo 10y ago
Does this mean there could be treatment that would clear them out ?
- NoGravitas 10y ago
  Yes, there's work being done on developing immunological treatments for Alzheimer's. Work in animal models has been promising, but a viable treatment for humans is still a ways off. http://www.nature.com/nri/journal/v6/n5/abs/nri1843.html http://www.nature.com/nri/journal/v6/n5/abs/nri1843.html

mrfusion 10y ago

How would this jibe with the type 3 diabetes idea? I wonder.

riprowan 10y ago

I find it interesting that at one time, arterial "plaque" was also considered to be some sort of residue or trash. Analysis of the plaque revealed high levels of cholesterol, so the "trash" was obviously caused by the cholesterol, probably by eating too much of it. This message was no doubt approved by the tobacco industry, which produces a zero-cholesterol product that is nevertheless highly damaging to the arteries. Now many doctors have changed their understanding: arterial plaques are scar tissue and scar tissue happens to contain a lot of cholesterol. Anything that causes scarring - like high blood pressure - leaves these plaques. So really the plaques are the by-product of an underlying pathology, which themselves create a secondary pathology. Likewise, perhaps, with Alzheimer's. The plaques in the brain are themselves a by-product of some other pathology. Solve the underlying pathology (or the body's response to it), and you solve Alzheimer's.