NEW STUDY LINKS THE HERPES VIRUS TO ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE

A study conducted by Taiwanese epidemiologists has found that people who were treated for severe herpes infection with antiviral drugs had a reduced relative risk of dementia by a factor of 10. Once the herpes virus infects a person, it remains dormant lifelong in the body within the peripheral nervous system. While there have been numerous studies that link the herpes simplex virus to Alzheimer’s, the new study has shown it increases the risk of developing the disease and, if treated with antivirals, it prevented the long-term damage of the disease in the brain that results in dementia. According to scientists at the University of Manchester commenting on the Taiwanese study, the dormant virus could be triggered to reactivate by “certain events such as stress, immunosuppression, and infection/inflammation elsewhere”.