Researchers Find Herpes Viruses in Brains Marked by Alzheimer's Disease • Hacker News Board

Re: Researchers Find Herpes Viruses in Brains Marked by Alzheimer's Disease

#81

Post by XalvinX » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 4:51 AM UTC

xenadu02 wrote: post #77

XalvinX wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point. Healthy people (or any other life form) do not suddenly get sick and die. I think this is a major issue with the entire system of Western medicine. Instead of focussing on healthy diet, lifestyle, exercise, managing stress, the system just wants to identify certain 'germs' and give pills that are supposed to kill those 'germs'... As I understand it, licensed physicians in the US, even after like 12 years…

> I think this is a major issue with the entire system of Western medicine As opposed to magic like Chinese medicine? Animal Spirits? Shaman? What exactly are you comparing to? Western medicine, for all its serious flaws, has done more to increase life expectancy and save lives than any other system. By many orders of magnitude. > Healthy people (or any other life form) do not suddenly get sick and die Demonstrably f…

I can see you are a True Believer and I'm not going to respond to this comment. Good day to you.

Re: Researchers Find Herpes Viruses in Brains Marked by Alzheimer's Disease

#82

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 5:23 AM UTC

XalvinX wrote: post #79

throwawayj90 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You actually buy and take some kind of man-made chemical every single day to avoid getting a cold sore every month or two? Yes? I don’t understand why you’re being so judgemental considering this is between me and my doctor and Valtrex is an incredibly safe drug. Unless you’ve gotten cold sores like I have (try four at a time), I’m really not interested in what you have to say, which seems to just be a regurgitatio…

What did I say that you consider "judgemental"? I've had cold sores since I was a little kid...doesn't everyone get cold sores, you know, when they have a cold and such? Hardly what I would call a disease... Or, let me guess, I caught Herpes from when my gramma or aunt used to kiss me at age 1? Here's judgemental for you: You are being sold a bill of goods. Cold sores are something everyone gets and there is no need…

[deleted]

Re: Researchers Find Herpes Viruses in Brains Marked by Alzheimer's Disease

#83

Post by jacquesm » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 6:00 AM UTC

XalvinX wrote: post #70

jacquesm wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be worth noting but it also could very easily be a mistake of identifying an effect as a cause. Once the body is unhealthy all kinds of organisms use that opportunity to stake a claim.

Great point. Healthy people (or any other life form) do not suddenly get sick and die. I think this is a major issue with the entire system of Western medicine. Instead of focussing on healthy diet, lifestyle, exercise, managing stress, the system just wants to identify certain 'germs' and give pills that are supposed to kill those 'germs'... As I understand it, licensed physicians in the US, even after like 12 years…

You read more into my comment than I wrote and you're dead wrong in that physicians do not study nutrition.

Re: Researchers Find Herpes Viruses in Brains Marked by Alzheimer's Disease

#84

Post by rl3 » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 6:46 AM UTC

throwawayj90 wrote: post #75

rl3 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virtually any drug looks scary when viewing its side effects in totality like that. The throwaway you're replying to is correct in saying it's a pretty safe drug. > But not a chance for a cold sore that’s nothing but a minor nuisance for a few days Except the virus regularly sheds asymptomatically, and Valacyclovir reduces that risk significantly, thus affording far more protection to one's partners. I otherwise agre…

Exactly! It’s also way more than a “minor nuisance”. Try two weeks of painful, disgusting scabbing, washing your hands constantly (God help you if you self-infect your eye, which is totally a thing), and a decent amount of pain and self-esteem problems. Oh, and forget about using your mouth for pretty much anything besides eating, and even that can be difficult. It’s totallt a quality of life thing. I have so many ou…

Good point. For some people outbreaks can be frequent and/or severe, and it really does become a quality of life thing in that case.

Re: Researchers Find Herpes Viruses in Brains Marked by Alzheimer's Disease

#85

Post by tomhoward » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 7:34 AM UTC

xenadu02 wrote: post #77

XalvinX wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point. Healthy people (or any other life form) do not suddenly get sick and die. I think this is a major issue with the entire system of Western medicine. Instead of focussing on healthy diet, lifestyle, exercise, managing stress, the system just wants to identify certain 'germs' and give pills that are supposed to kill those 'germs'... As I understand it, licensed physicians in the US, even after like 12 years…

> I think this is a major issue with the entire system of Western medicine As opposed to magic like Chinese medicine? Animal Spirits? Shaman? What exactly are you comparing to? Western medicine, for all its serious flaws, has done more to increase life expectancy and save lives than any other system. By many orders of magnitude. > Healthy people (or any other life form) do not suddenly get sick and die Demonstrably f…

Hey there, you needn't be so belligerent on this topic; it's a topic where everyone cares about the right things - i.e., keeping people alive and well for longer.

Through my own health challenges that have extended back 10+ years, I've avidly used both conventional medicine and natural/complementary treatments (acupuncture, naturopathy, emotion-based therapies, therapeutic breathing exercises), and through extensive experience I know better than most that both have their place and both serve very different functions.

Nobody doubts that modern medical innovations like antibiotics, complex surgery and many other western medical approaches have done tremendous good in terms of curing previously incurable illnesses and extending lives.

But on the matter of "people have been suddenly dropping dead from cancer, flu, random infections, et al for all of human history", it's uncontroversial that people's propensity to contract these illnesses and die from them is heavily influenced by their underlying state of health, i.e., factors like organ function, immune system fortitude, inflammation, hormone and neurotransmitter levels, nutrient intake/absorption and emotional state - all of which interact in vastly complex ways.

It's not a damning dismissal of Western medicine to say that it doesn't do so much to focus on these factors that are further upstream; it's too busy dealing with people who are acutely unwell or at risk of mortality.

Of course when you visit a general physician for a checkup they'll tell you to avoid smoking, to not consume too much alcohol or junk food and to eat plenty of vegetables.

But if you really want to go deep into understanding and optimising your underlying health - which I needed to do, due to having impairments that conventional medicine couldn't help with - less conventional approaches can be highly beneficial.

And for what it's worth, I do know a lot about the placebo effect!

Re: Researchers Find Herpes Viruses in Brains Marked by Alzheimer's Disease

#86

Post by known » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 7:40 AM UTC

Scientists have engineered a version of Herpes virus that can kill cancer cells

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talimogene_laherparepvec

Re: Researchers Find Herpes Viruses in Brains Marked by Alzheimer's Disease

#87

Post by virusduck » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 2:36 PM UTC

XalvinX wrote: post #71

zbjornson wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise, detectable RNA/DNA does not mean there's virus (virions). An unusual example, but it's common to have Ebola virus RNA in semen (a fluid from another immuno-privileged site) with no detectable virus for months after primary infection. ( https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa1511410 among others.) Similar patterns exist for lots of other viruses.

So why don't they try to isolate the virus itself instead of looking for RNA/DNA? Too expensive? Or impossible perhaps?

This is more difficult than is sounds. Herpesviruses are quiescent (latent) for much of their lives and exist only as DNA, with no virions being produced. There are different latency "programs"--during some of these, there may be a handful of virus genes produced, and some there are no genes produced. Circumstances may cause these virus genomes to reactivate--transcribing genes and making virions.

Maybe confusingly, herpesviruses may still contribute to the biology of the cell even in the latent state.

DNA/RNA sequencing is also more sensitive in some ways (which can be both good and bad). It is also a very broad tool. You can go back to large datasets and try to squeeze more information out--even things you werent looking for originally, like herpesviruses. NCBI also hosts a very large repository of raw sequence data (SRA--the sequence read archive). Much of this data has decent metadata, so you could conceivably even do a new study on somebody else's old data.

Re: Researchers Find Herpes Viruses in Brains Marked by Alzheimer's Disease

#88

Post by virusduck » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 2:43 PM UTC

chasil wrote: post #28

virusduck wrote: post #9

This is not surprising. At least one study [1] showed 85% of people's brains are PCR-positive for at least HHV-6. It is also important to keep in mind that herpesviruses have evolved with us (and many other species) and in some ways are considered part of our normal flora. They may also play an important role in the proper development of our immune system. The data in this paper is suggestive (and complicated!!), but…

People commonly take acyclovir for simplex 1 & 2. Does that suppress this virus? Can any of these common drugs pass the blood-brain barrier? Might other herpes strains be involved? Zoster (chicken pox)? Epstein-Barr (mono)? Kaposi's Sarcoma/HHV8?

Don't forget Cytomegalovirus (CMV, or HHV-5)! (Also, the zoster/chickenpox virus is calle Varicella-zoster virus (VZV or HHV-3).

Since there is no proposed mechanism for how the virus may be involved, there is no way to know if acyclovir, cidofovir, or any nucleoside analog might help. These drugs only really help to stop actively replicating viruses (lytic viruses). Most of the herpesvirus life cycle is spent in "latency" where it only exists as a piece of DNA (some, like HHV6/7 may integrate into the host chromosome, others like HSV-1/HHV-1 and EBV/HHV-4 maintain their genome as a separate molecule). During this period, there are few, if any, genes made, but in some cases, those genes may be important to disease pathogenesis. The role of herpesviruses in latency-associated diseases is very complicated, and is also dependent on host genetics.

Re: Researchers Find Herpes Viruses in Brains Marked by Alzheimer's Disease

#89

Post by virusduck » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 2:56 PM UTC

zbjornson wrote: post #37

virusduck wrote: post #9

This is not surprising. At least one study [1] showed 85% of people's brains are PCR-positive for at least HHV-6. It is also important to keep in mind that herpesviruses have evolved with us (and many other species) and in some ways are considered part of our normal flora. They may also play an important role in the proper development of our immune system. The data in this paper is suggestive (and complicated!!), but…

Likewise, detectable RNA/DNA does not mean there's virus (virions). An unusual example, but it's common to have Ebola virus RNA in semen (a fluid from another immuno-privileged site) with no detectable virus for months after primary infection. ( https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa1511410 among others.) Similar patterns exist for lots of other viruses.

True, but keep in mind:

It is a normal part of all herpesviruses to be quiescent. They have the capacity to reactivate from nothing but their genome into a fully functional virus.

Ebola is a negative-stranded RNA virus, and it is unlikely to find naked RNA in any body site. Rather, it is a mix of infectious virions and noninfectioius virus-like particles. The NEJM study you site was a qRTPCR only study. There was no attempt to actually culture the virus from the semen. Previous studies have tried culturing, and it difficult to culture semen-derived virus at the qRTPCR titers identified here.

Re: Researchers Find Herpes Viruses in Brains Marked by Alzheimer's Disease

#90

Post by tomhoward » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 3:36 PM UTC

swsieber wrote: post #29

craftyguy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> precisely because these are factors that are common in the population Herpes is also extremely common in the human population (cold sores, anyone?) so I fail to see how this somehow proves your point.

But Herpes in the brain isn't common in the human population.

> The team found that levels of two human herpes viruses, HHV-6 and HHV-7, were up to twice as high in brain tissue from people with Alzheimer's.

Yes, HHV-6 is common throughout the population, including in the brain. It's an endogenous retrovirus, so is inherited via DNA, or is easily transmitted from person to person, particularly in childhood.

The issue is severity, not presence.

By the way, the variants of herpes in question are HHV-6/7, which are different to the herpes simplex viruses (HSV1/2) that cause cold sores and skin breakouts.