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Different Brain Regions Are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer’s Disease

nature.com

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Re: Different Brain Regions Are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer’s Disease

#31

Post by xenadu02 »

smithkl42 wrote: post #10
mschuster91 wrote: post #3

Interesting. Does this mean that a treatment with fungicides may stop/prevent AD onset or progress?

I know that toenail and fingernail fungus infections are very common (see, e.g., tons of late-night TV ads). Any chance that those kinds of infection could make their way into the brain?

The article mentions infection of blood vessels so it seems likely that the fungi make their way into the brain from other sites.

Perhaps the fungi avoid the immune system by being very slow and relatively non-disruptive, and the reduced effectiveness of the immune system in old age allows it to take hold and spread.

Re: Different Brain Regions Are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer’s Disease

#33

Post by kawera »

n0us wrote: post #26
kawera wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An old but interesting article and discussion related to your question: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/1969/12/how-your-c... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3573694 Articles somehow related to the subject: http://www.nature.com/news/the-tantalizing-links-between-gut... http://universityofcalifornia.edu/news/do-gut-bacteria-rule-... http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-second-brain/ http://www…

Thanks for all of the sources. I remember listening to a talk on NPR about the same subject a while back in my car but I couldn't find a link to it.

Maybe this: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2012/07/02/15614221...

Re: Different Brain Regions Are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer’s Disease

#34

Post by philipov »

dragonwriter wrote: post #30
3327 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps but the discovery is still significant. Until now there was no such correlation with Alzeimher's and Fungi. This has significant implications in terms of direction of future research.

> Until now there was no such correlation with Alzeimher's and Fungi. The point of the criticism seems to be that with an improper control group, there still isn't such a correlation, just a suggestion of a possibility of a correlation. But it might be a correlation between, e.g., age and fungal infection. That's why, but for the variables under study, you want your control group to look as much like your experimenta…

A general correlation between age and fungal infection might be even more significant, since that suggests a path to reduce the effects of aging in general. Either way, a follow-up study to remove those control flaws and hone in on the cause would be necessary.

Re: Different Brain Regions Are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer’s Disease

#35

Post by nickff »

dragonwriter wrote: post #30
3327 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps but the discovery is still significant. Until now there was no such correlation with Alzeimher's and Fungi. This has significant implications in terms of direction of future research.

> Until now there was no such correlation with Alzeimher's and Fungi. The point of the criticism seems to be that with an improper control group, there still isn't such a correlation, just a suggestion of a possibility of a correlation. But it might be a correlation between, e.g., age and fungal infection. That's why, but for the variables under study, you want your control group to look as much like your experimenta…

Even with an improper control group, the fungi-Alzheimer's correlation still exists. There may be another factor which is causing the correlation (a so-called 'dreaded third thing'), and the correlation may not indicate causation, but the correlation still exists.

Re: Different Brain Regions Are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer’s Disease

#36

Post by [deleted] »

dragonwriter wrote: post #30
3327 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps but the discovery is still significant. Until now there was no such correlation with Alzeimher's and Fungi. This has significant implications in terms of direction of future research.

> Until now there was no such correlation with Alzeimher's and Fungi. The point of the criticism seems to be that with an improper control group, there still isn't such a correlation, just a suggestion of a possibility of a correlation. But it might be a correlation between, e.g., age and fungal infection. That's why, but for the variables under study, you want your control group to look as much like your experimenta…

[deleted]

Re: Different Brain Regions Are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer’s Disease

#37

Post by chetanahuja »

Uptrenda wrote: post #23

It's hard not to exaggerate the implications of this study if fungal infection does turn out to be the cause of AD given how huge this would be for humanity. Just off the top of my head I can say this disease has effected my family (1 set of grandparents effected by this disease so far) so I'd like for the conclusion to be correct. I guess the next step would be testing the hypothesis with more people with AD to see…

The discovery, if corroborated by others, could indeed be huge but I'm afraid it wouldn't open up new treatment options anytime soon. Fungal infections inside the body are really really hard to treat in the first place. Add to that the blood-brain barrier which makes it very hard to treat any type of infection in the brain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood%E2%80%93brain_barrier#Fu...

Combination of these two factors sadly means that short of major breakthroughs in fungal antibiotic research or in drug delivery to the brain, Alzheimer is not likely to suddenly become more treatable even if the fungal infection theory proves to be true.

Re: Different Brain Regions Are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer’s Disease

#38

Post by derefr »

Another recent discovery, that of the existence of a meningeal lymphatic system, makes this finding all the more interesting. As far as I know, fungus is in the set of foreign bodies that the adaptive immune system does the least about. Instead, the body mostly removes fungus by mechanical lymphatic clearance.

Re: Different Brain Regions Are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer’s Disease

#39

Post by philipov »

sitkack wrote: post #25
n0us wrote: post #11

I wonder how many mental illnesses are the result of imbalances in foreign organic matter/microbes/fungi/dietary issues and not issues fundamental to the brain itself?

Exactly, we have lots of instances of other parts of the body becoming infected but brain sicknesses I think go untreated probably because they are hard to detect and the brain is so resilient.

I think it's a combination of it being difficult/expensive to get inside the brain, limiting such exploration to only the most severe cases, and also a latent bias in western culture to buy into Mind-Body Duality. The idea that the Mind is separate from the Body is still prevalent, and has an insidious effect on many people's judgement: even people who are trained otherwise.

Re: Different Brain Regions Are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer’s Disease

#40

Post by chetanahuja »

mschuster91 wrote: post #3

Interesting. Does this mean that a treatment with fungicides may stop/prevent AD onset or progress?

I wrote a comment in another subthread but basically that's not likely to happen anytime soon due to two factors. 1) currently available antifungals (for internal fungal infections) are not nearly as powerful and quick as we think of "regular" antibiotics to be even in the organs that get plenty of medicated-blood supply and 2) Blood-brain barrier means that it's hard to deliver any medications to the brain tissue (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood%E2%80%93brain_barrier#Fu...)
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