Herpes and varicella/shingles viruses may well promote the development of Alzheimer’s disease. This is shown by a recent study on infected cells. Explanations.
Some viruses could be triggers for Alzheimer’s disease. This is the hypothesis of a team of British and American researchers. The viruses concerned – which belong to the same family – are that of shingles. Previous studies showing a protective effect of the shingles vaccine gave scientists this idea.
To find out more, they intentionally infected human cells of the nervous system in vitro with HSV-1 and/or varicella/zoster virus. Then, they observed the evolution of these cells in the presence of these pathogens, looking in particular for the presence of signs of Alzheimer’s disease such as the Tau protein and amyloid plaques.
And their findings are quite disturbing. Cells carrying HSV-1 and reinfected with varicella/zoster virus saw reactivation of herpes within them associated with the appearance of Tau protein and amyloid plaques. This means, according to the authors, that developing shingles risks reactivating herpes in nerve cells and indirectly increasing the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
These results therefore confirm the interest of vaccination against shingles, which would therefore prevent the reactivation of herpes, if the person is a carrier, and therefore would reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s. This vaccine is recommended in France for adults aged 65 to 74.
To note : 95% of adults are thus carriers of the chickenpox virus, and more than one in two adults of the herpes virus.
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