A study has found that viral infectious diseases such as the flu are closely related to degenerative brain diseases such as dementia. The American scientific journal Nature published a study by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Center for Dementia on the 23rd (local time).
The research team analyzed the medical data of about 35,000 people with brain disease and 310,000 people without brain disease stored in Finland’s FinnGen and compared them with the medical data of about 100,000 people in the UK’s BioBank.
As a result, at least 22 associations were found between viral infections and degenerative brain diseases such as Parkinson’s disease. In particular, people with encephalitis were about 31 times more likely to develop vascular dementia (Alzheimer’s) than those without it. In addition, people infected with the flu virus that causes pneumonia were four times more likely to develop vascular dementia than those who did not.
Matthew Miller, a professor of immunology at McMaster University in Canada, told Nature, “It is surprising that there is a broad association between the number of viruses and related degenerative brain diseases.” However, the research team said, “This study only shows the connection between viral infection and degenerative brain disease.
In response, Coronella van Doujin, professor of genetic epidemiology at Oxford University in the UK, said in the same interview, “Several types of degenerative brain diseases are diagnosed in old age.” If we can find out, many people will be able to prevent dementia.”
Meanwhile, the results of this study were recently published in the American neuroscience journal ‘Neuron’.
Lee Ye-ji, Donga.com reporter leeyj@donga.com
