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Using human brain tissue in lab, researchers show herpes link to Alzheimer’s

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Re: Using human brain tissue in lab, researchers show herpes link to Alzheimer’s

#71

Post by toomuchtodo »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #57
toomuchtodo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're getting your health information solely from Hacker News, without any additional research or critical thinking, you should probably not do that. I'm not a domain expert (Virologist or otherwise in medicine), nor do I pretend to be, and I qualified my statement at the top of the thread ("might"). Everything else in my comment was factual.

I just don’t think wild speculation about science is fun. What is fun to me about science is fact based exploration. Hypothesis is great and conjecture has its place, but wild conjecture is not fun to me. You can feel otherwise and that’s okay!

I don't believe my original comment was wild conjecture (although it did lack a citation how I arrived at the hypothesis), but in keeping with your ideals as it relates to putting forth a thesis in a public forum:

> We believe that HSV1 is a major contributory factor for Alzheimer’s disease and that it enters the brains of elderly people as their immune system declines with age. It then establishes a latent (dormant) infection, from which it is reactivated by events such as stress, a reduced immune system and brain inflammation induced by infection by other microbes.

> Excitingly, successful prevention of Alzheimer’s disease by use of specific anti-herpes agents has now been demonstrated in a large-scale population study in Taiwan. Hopefully, information in other countries, if available, will yield similar results.

https://theconversation.com/alzheimers-disease-mounting-evid... (Alzheimer’s disease: mounting evidence that herpes virus is a cause)

The author of the post is Ruth Itzhaki, Professor Emeritus of Molecular Neurobiology, University of Manchester

This (in my opinion) would lead a reasonable person to believe that an HSV-1 vaccine would prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s (through the prevention of an HSV-1 infection), in a similar fashion to how the HPV vaccine prevents (among other cancers) cervical cancer. I hope you have found some value in this subthread.

Re: Using human brain tissue in lab, researchers show herpes link to Alzheimer’s

#72

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

tengbretson wrote: post #67
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither of those would be shamed for the virus, those would be shamed for being a jerk, exact same as not wearing a mask when you know you should. Just like having Covid is nothing to be ashamed of, no one should be shamed for having cold sores.

Then all you're doing is making a distinction so that you can defend against a position nobody in this conversation was taking. Look through the thread. Is anyone making the case that the mere existence of the virus in a person is worthy of scorn? Or are all of the people you are bothering to make counter points to condemning those that carelessly transmit it ? An act that you yourself claimed made someone a "jerk."…

You're missing Echelon's point and clearly aren't aware of the reality of having HSV-1 or 2. There's a huge stigma just for having a cold sore. Kids are made fun of in school for it. People are thought of as being sexually promiscuous for catching it. That's not right. The passive spread of a disease that can be caught when the transmitters has no symptoms and may very well have never had symptoms is not something to cause shame.

Re: Using human brain tissue in lab, researchers show herpes link to Alzheimer’s

#74

Post by est31 »

vikramkr wrote: post #68
Gibbon1 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Little I've gleaned, HPV is a DNA virus. Those can easily become latent. Where coronaviruses are RNA viruses which don't appear too. A couple of conronavirurs cause mild colds they don't appear to stick around. So you would assume SARS-COV2 to behave the same way. Also the flu is a segmented RNA virus. The RNA is composed of segments. Which allows it to mutate by shuffling those segments with other strains. Including…

It's not necessarily an rna vs dna thing. HIV is an rna virus and notoriously goes latent.

You are right in that HIV is an RNA virus and achieves latency, but it doesn't attain latency in its RNA form, but from the RNA being converted to DNA and then incorporated into the host cell's chromosomal DNA (in DNA form). It then sticks around for the duration of the cell's life and any of its descendants. That's why HIV is called a retrovirus, because it creates DNA from RNA during its life cycle.

RNA is chemically less stable than DNA so the latter is more suited for viruses with long genomes as well as viruses which want to go latent. Not an expert. Would be curious if there are viruses that are latent while being in RNA form.

Anyways, Coronaviruses are no retroviruses and their entire lifecycle is in RNA form, so there is no danger of them becoming latent from what I could gather.

Re: Using human brain tissue in lab, researchers show herpes link to Alzheimer’s

#75

Post by vikramkr »

est31 wrote: post #74
vikramkr wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not necessarily an rna vs dna thing. HIV is an rna virus and notoriously goes latent.

You are right in that HIV is an RNA virus and achieves latency, but it doesn't attain latency in its RNA form, but from the RNA being converted to DNA and then incorporated into the host cell's chromosomal DNA (in DNA form). It then sticks around for the duration of the cell's life and any of its descendants. That's why HIV is called a retrovirus, because it creates DNA from RNA during its life cycle. RNA is chemical…

Hep C in its chronic form isn't exactly "latent" in the way that a lentivirus or a herpesvirus can be, but it's the closest thing I can think of in terms of an RNA virus that replicates with RNA dependent RNA polymerase that has something resembling a "latent" form. It still replicates and has turnover due to the low stability of RNA as you mentioned, but it stays asymptomatic for decades in this infection course. I"m sure a virologist might be able to chime in with a better example, maybe a nonhuman one? There's so much variation in biology it'd almost be surprising if some RNA virus somewhere hadn't figured out some weird way to stabilize an RNA episome somehow

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepatitis_C#Chronic_infection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepatitis_C_virus#Replication

Re: Using human brain tissue in lab, researchers show herpes link to Alzheimer’s

#76

Post by igravious »

benibela wrote: post #73

Didn't they discover that periodontitis causes Alzheimer: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau3333 Perhaps any infection that reaches the brain can cause Alzheimer and amyloid-beta plaques are there to fight the infection

Came here to say this. Didn't that connection sweep through here a while back?

I just checked. Turns out the herpes connection has been made before too:

(1) Alzheimer's risk 10 times lower with herpes medication (2 years ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17540094

(2) Some studies show an association between the herpes virus and Alzheimer’s (2 years ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18265115

(3) Researchers Find Herpes Viruses in Brains Marked by Alzheimer's Disease (2 years ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17366591

(4) Link Between Alzheimer’s and Herpes (2 years ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17521994

Re: Using human brain tissue in lab, researchers show herpes link to Alzheimer’s

#77

Post by paypalcust83 »

I worked with a guy researching the functional basis of Alzheimer's synthesizing many radiological technologies.

It is likely a multi-factor pathological degenerative condition with many, many potential precipitating (no pun intended) causes, both nature and nurture.

"The cure" is more than likely a holistic combination of many early lifestyle modifications including, but not limited to: diet, sleep, exercise, gene therapy, immunotherapy, medications, and supplements.

Re: Using human brain tissue in lab, researchers show herpes link to Alzheimer’s

#78

Post by igravious »

benibela wrote: post #73

Didn't they discover that periodontitis causes Alzheimer: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau3333 Perhaps any infection that reaches the brain can cause Alzheimer and amyloid-beta plaques are there to fight the infection

(1) Gum bacteria implicated in Alzheimer's and other diseases (1 year ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19606025

(2) Gum disease–causing bacteria could spur Alzheimer’s (1 year ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18987015

Re: Using human brain tissue in lab, researchers show herpes link to Alzheimer’s

#79

Post by 01100011 »

ohyes wrote: post #62
01100011 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I had insomnia for a while but that seems to be in check now. I started intermittent fasting a few weeks ago. No big changes yet, but I'll see how it goes. I also started 750mg of NMN. I've been going back to my old supplement regimen since it seemed to work better for me(moderate dose of vitamins, ashwagandha, CDP choline, high-DHA fish oil, NAC). I tried eliminating a lot of them for several months but it just…

How have you been measuring your cognitive decline? I have much shifted priorities from when I was in my 20s and was never that smart to begin with, so I’m note sure how I would even start to measure it.

I wish I had an objective test. All I can go by is the difficulty I experience solving problems and my progress at work. There are certain classes of problems, boolean logic for instance, which used to be second nature to me but now leave me feeling blank and without even a hint of what the answer is. It even shows up in everyday life. I encounter more and more situations where I can't take the available information and generate a solid decision... I end up 'YOLO'ing it a lot and just taking a guess. I'm trying to come up with coping strategies, like writing things down and using visual tricks, but it doesn't work most of the time. It's frustrating and scary. I don't even know if I could transition from a tech role into management because I am so unfocused and unable to think.

Re: Using human brain tissue in lab, researchers show herpes link to Alzheimer’s

#80

Post by vmception »

Natsu wrote: post #56
vikramkr wrote: post #9

Here's the original publication. The paper is actually more focused on the 3d engineered brain model and is titled "A 3d human brain-like tissue model of herpes-induced Alzheimer's disease": https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/19/eaay8828 The publication actually seems to highlight the demonstration of the 3d brain Alzheimers model as more of what the accomplishment of the paper is (as compared to a demonstrati…

Thanks for linking that, the first thing I wondered when they said "herpes" was "which one"? Looks like the answer to that is herpes simplex virus type I (HSV-1)

the statnews article says that too
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