From: mjs23x@gmail.com   
      
   On Friday, May 27, 2016 at 9:00:50 AM UTC-5, ⊙＿⊙ wrote:   
   > TECH & SCIENCE   
   > THE VIRAL AND BACTERIAL LINKS TO THE BRAIN'S DECLINE   
   > BY ED CARA   
   > ON 5/22/16 AT 11:00 AM   
   > 06_03_Brain_Bugs_01   
   > IN THE MAGAZINE   
   >    
   > Herpes simplex viruses pass through the outer protein coat of a nucleus,   
   magnified 40,000 times. Dr. Ruth Itzhak's research published in 1997 revealed   
   a potential link to the presence of HSV-1 (one specific variety of Herpes   
   simplex) and the onset of    
   Alzheimer's in 60 percent of the cases they studied. However, she has only   
   been able to study a low number of cases since the work has received only a   
   cursory nod from the greater research world and little funding.   
   > EYE OF SCIENCE/SCIENCE SOURCE   
   > TECH & SCIENCEMICROBESBACTERIABRAINSRESEARCH   
   > As recently as the 1970s, doctors stubbornly treated complaints of festering   
   open sores in the stomach as a failing of diet or an inability to manage   
   stress. Though we had long accepted the basic premise of Louis Pasteur’s   
   germ theory—that    
   flittering short bursts of disease and death are often caused by microscopic   
   beings that could be stopped by sanitary food, water and specially crafted   
   drugs—many researchers ardently resisted the idea that they could also   
   trigger more complicated,    
   chronic illnesses.   
   >    
   > When it came to ulcers, no one believed that any microorganisms could endure   
   in the acidic cauldron of our digestive system. It took the gumshoe work of   
   Australian doctors and medical researchers Barry Marshall and Robin Warren in   
   the 1980s to debunk    
   that belief and discover the specific bug responsible for most chronic stomach   
   ulcers, Helicobacter pylori. Marshall even went so far as to swallow the germ   
   to prove the link was real and, obviously, became sick soon after. Thankfully,   
   his self-sacrifice    
   was eventually validated when he and Warren were awarded a Nobel Prize in 2005.   
   >    
   > But while modern medicine has grown comfortable with the idea that even   
   chronic physical ailments can be sparked by the living infinitesimal, there is   
   an even bolder, more controversial proposition from a growing number of   
   researchers. It's the idea    
   that certain germs, bugs and microbes can lie hidden in the body for decades,   
   all the while slowly damaging our brains, even to the point of dementia,   
   depression and schizophrenia.   
   >    
   >    
   > Try Newsweek for only $1.25 per week   
   >    
   > 06_03_Brain_Bugs_01   
   > Herpes simplex viruses pass through the outer protein coat of a nucleus,   
   magnified 40,000 times. Dr. Ruth Itzhak's research published in 1997 revealed   
   a potential link to the presence of HSV-1 (one specific variety of Herpes   
   simplex) and the onset of    
   Alzheimer's in 60 percent of the cases they studied. However, she has only   
   been able to study a low number of cases since the work has received only a   
   cursory nod from the greater research world and little funding.   
   > EYE OF SCIENCE/SCIENCE SOURCE   
   >    
   > Pleading for attention   
   >    
   > In January 2016, a team led by Shawn Gale, an associate professor in   
   psychology at Brigham Young University, looked at the infection history of   
   5,662 young to middle-aged adults alongside the results of tests intended to   
   measure cognition. Gale’s    
   rogues’ gallery included both parasites (the roundworm and Toxoplasma gondii   
   ) and viruses (the hepatitis clan, cytomegalovirus, and herpes simplex virus   
   Types 1 and 2). The team created an index of infectious disease —the more   
   bugs a participant had    
   been exposed to, the higher the person’s index score. It turned out that   
   those with a higher score were more likely to have worse learning and memory   
   skills, as well as slower information-processing speed than those with a lower   
   score, even after    
   controlling for other factors, like age, sex and financial status.   
   >    
   >    
   > Aside from their shared ability to stay rooted inside us, the ways these   
   pathogens might influence our noggins are as varied as their biology is from   
   one another. Some, like T. gondii (often transmitted to humans via   
   contaminated cats and infected dirt)   
   , can discreetly infest the brain and cause subtle changes to our brain   
   chemistry, altering levels of neurotransmitters like dopamine while causing no   
   overt signs of disease. Others, like hepatitis C, are suspected of hitching a   
   ride onto infected white    
   blood cells that cross the brain-blood barrier and, once inside, deplete our   
   supply of white brain matter, the myelin-coated axons that help neurons   
   communicate with each other and seem to actively shape how we learn. And still   
   others, like H. pylori,    
   could trigger a low-level but chronic inflammatory response that gradually   
   wears down our body and mind alike.   
   >    
   > Gale’s team found only fairly small deficits in cognition connected to   
   infection. But other researchers, like Ruth Itzhaki, professor emeritus of   
   molecular neurobiology at Britain’s University of Manchester, believe   
   microbes may play an outsized    
   role in one of the most devastating neurodegenerative disorders around:   
   Alzheimer’s disease, which afflicted 47 million people worldwide in 2015.   
   Last March, Itzhaki and a globe-spanning group of researchers penned an   
   editorial in the Journal of    
   Alzheimer's Disease, imploring the scientific community to more seriously   
   pursue a proposed link between Alzheimer’s and particular germs, namely   
   herpes simplex virus Type 1 (HSV-1), Chlamydia pneumoniae and spirochetes—a   
   diverse group of bacteria    
   that include those responsible for syphilis and Lyme disease. The unusually   
   direct plea, for scientists at least, was the culmination of decades of   
   frustration.   
   >    
   > “There’s great hostility to the microbial concept amongst certain   
   influential people in the field, and they are the ones who usually determine   
   whether or not one’s research grant application is successful,” says   
   Itzhaki. “The irony is that    
   they never provide scientific objections to the concepts—they just belittle   
   them, so there’s nothing to rebut!”   
   >    
      
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