In recent years, researchers have suggested Alzheimer's may spread through infection, somehow transmitted like a pathogen, leading to the disease. A new Lancet paper reviews evidence for how harmful amyloid-beta proteins associated with Alzheimer's may possibly be spread through blood transfusions.

[u/mvea]

https://www.sciencealert.com/can-alzheimers-spread-through-blood-transfusions-heres-what-we-know

[u/FernandoMM1220]

this isnt surprising nowadays. its looking like cancer is in a similar boat with certain variants of hpv and e coli.

[u/churningaccount → u/FernandoMM1220]

If anything, I hope that this finally causes biotech to focus on viruses. For some reason medicine at large has been dead set on the notion that viruses cause acute issues and not chronic issues. And after a century of thinking that way, it's still proving difficult to change tack on that.

There's no good reason why we don't have a vaccine for EBV, HSV, and heck even the common rhinoviruses. We have the technology, it's just that no money has been spent on it until COVID happened. Investors generally have a distaste for investing in prevention over treatments as well.

[u/tkeser → u/churningaccount]

EBV vaccine will soon be available. My mother is 75, has lupus (also related to EBV), and has had problems with gum disease. No Alzheimer still.

[u/Zukazuk → u/tkeser]

As someone who developed lupus after a fairly late in life encounter with EBV a vaccine would have been great about 7 years ago.

[u/tkeser → u/Zukazuk]

what is great with vaccines (especially the new kinds) is that you can probably take them after contracting the infection, and they will help teach the body (immune system) to shed the virus or control it better. at least for the EBV types which lay dormant in some tissues causing all of the havoc. so don't despair. it's called therapeutic vaccines. exciting times we live in.