Dementia could be linked to herpes virus, study finds

 Alzheimer’s disease may be caused by the herpes virus, a study suggests, leading to hopes that anti-viral medicine could help prevent dementia.

Around 850,000 people are living with dementia in Britain, the majority of whom have Alzheimer’s disease, which occurs when sticky plaques of amyloid build up in the brain, killing brain cells.

But new research has found that the brains of people who have died of Alzheimer’s have almost double the level of HHV-6A and HHV-7 herpes virus as non-diseased brains, suggesting it is playing a role in the condition.

Researchers in the US believe that the disease may trigger an immune “cascade” that encourages the growth of amyloid plaques. The finding raises hopes that cases could be prevented through antiviral drugs.

The team did not set out to study the impact of herpes, but were looking for differences in six key brain regions. The research was published in Neuron.