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Alzheimer's disease - a neurospirochetosis. Analysis of the evidence following Koch's and Hill's criteria. Judith Miklossy Correspondence: Judith Miklossy judithmiklossy@bluewin.ch Journal of Neuroinflammation 2011, 8:90 doi:10.1186/1742-2094-8-90 Published: 4 August 2011 Abstract (provisional) It is established that chronic spirochetal infection can cause slowly progressive dementia, brain atrophy and amyloid deposition in late neurosyphilis. Recently it has been suggested that various types of spirochetes, in an analogous way to Treponema pallidum, could cause dementia and may be involved in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Here, we review all data available in the literature on the detection of spirochetes in AD and...

The blood of patients with the brain disease contains antibodies not found in healthy people. A new blood test diagnoses Alzheimer's disease by sensing molecules produced by the immune systems of people with the neurodegenerative condition. So far, the test has been applied to just a small number of blood samples, but if proven on a larger scale, the assay could help diagnose Alzheimer's disease in combination with other tests, says Thomas Kodadek, a professor of chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida. It could also be used to identify patients for trials of experimental Alzheimer's drugs, he...

Psychologist Margaret Gatz explains what 25 years of research have taught her about reducing the risk of dementia. Margaret Gatz, a psychologist at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, is investigating the causes of Alzheimer's disease. To that end, she has studied the health of more than 14,000 Swedish twins for more than 25 years. On 5 August, she will tell the annual convention of the American Psychological Association in Washington DC what the study has taught her about how to reduce risk for the disease. Nature got a preview. What first motivated you to study Alzheimer's disease? Before...

Older people suffering from mild memory and cognition problems may be less likely to progress to full-blown Alzheimer’s disease if they receive treatment for medical conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol, a new study has found. In 2004, researchers at Daping Hospital in Chongqing, China, began following 837 residents ages 55 and older who had mild cognitive impairment but not dementia. Of these, 414 had at least one medical condition that can impair blood flow to the brain. After five years, 298 of the participants had developed Alzheimer’s. Subjects who had had high blood pressure or other vascular...

Wherever it's buried in the body, a disease leaves traces in the blood—or so the thinking goes. But finding these biomarkers, which can help catch the disease early on, has been an exercise in futility, with one promising candidate after another losing its luster once it receives scrutiny. A team of chemists and other researchers now propose a new way to pick up biomarkers with a blood test: by screening for antibodies that the body makes in response to particular diseases. So far, the group has reported results for only a small number of Alzheimer's disease patients. But they are...

Ancient food source may offer neuroprotectionNutritional supplementation with Spirulina, a nutrient-rich, blue-green algae, appeared to provide neuroprotective support for dying motor neurons in a mouse model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, University of South Florida neuroscientists have found. Although more research is needed, they suggest that a spirulina-supplemented diet may provide clinical benefits for ALS patients. A spirulina dietary supplement was shown to delay the onset of motor symptoms and disease progression, reducing inflammatory markers and motor neuron death in a G93A mouse model of ALS. Spirulina, an ancient food source used by the...

High levels of the so-called "good" cholesterol may lower the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study. In the study, those with high levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), the good kind of cholesterol, were 60 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease than those with lower HDL levels. "The higher your HDL, the more protected you are from Alzheimer's disease, apparently," said study researcher Dr. Christiane Reitz, of Columbia University. The researchers found no evidence that high levels of "bad" cholesterol, known as low-density lipoprotein (LDL), affected a person's risk of Alzheimer's.

Alzheimer’s researchers are obsessed with a small, sticky protein fragment, beta amyloid, that clumps into barnaclelike balls in the brains of patients with this degenerative neurological disease. It is a normal protein. Everyone’s brain makes it. But the problem in Alzheimer’s is that it starts to accumulate into balls — plaques. The first sign the disease is developing — before there are any symptoms — is a buildup of amyloid. And for years, it seemed, the problem in Alzheimer’s was that brain cells were making too much of it. But now, a surprising new study has found that that view...

New research in the FASEB Journal suggests that manipulation of the brain's own immune cells with IL-6 could lead to reversal of Alzheimer's disease pathologyA breakthrough discovery by scientists from the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL, may lead to a new treatment for Alzheimer's Disease that actually removes amyloid plaques—considered a hallmark of the disease—from patients' brains. This discovery, published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), is based on the unexpected finding that when the brain's immune cells (microglia) are activated by the interleukin-6 protein (IL-6), they actually remove plaques instead of causing them or making them worse. The research...

There is a good deal of debate about the health effects of caffeine, and whether these effects are primarily positive or negative. Caffeine, particularly in coffee, has been studied closely to determine where it may be of benefit, and where it may cause undesirable effects. Health benefits of caffeine Parkinson's disease Parkinson's is caused by the loss of brain cells that produce a chemical messenger called dopamine. According to a researcher from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, people who drink coffee or consume caffeine regularly have a lower risk of developing Parkinson's disease. The research put forth...

Using a new mouse model of Alzheimer's disease, researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found that Alzheimer's pathology originates in Amyloid-Beta (Abeta) oligomers in the brain, rather than the amyloid plaques previously thought by many researchers to cause the disease. The study, which was supported by the "Oligomer Research Consortium" of the Cure Alzheimer Fund and a MERIT Award from the Veterans Administration, appears in the journal Annals of Neurology. "The buildup of amyloid plaques was described over 100 years ago and has received the bulk of the attention in Alzheimer's pathology," said lead author Sam Gandy, MD,...

Bacterial Product Isolated in Soil from Easter Island Rescues Learning, Memory in Alzheimer's Mouse Model Rapamycin, a drug that keeps the immune system from attacking transplanted organs, may have another exciting use: fighting Alzheimer's disease. The drug -- a bacterial product first isolated in soil from Easter Island -- rescued learning and memory deficits in a mouse model of Alzheimer's, a team from The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio reported on Feb. 23. The study, in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, offers the first evidence that the drug is able to reverse Alzheimer's-like deficits in an...

New research in the FASEB Journal reports that a novel enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay could be a critical diagnostic tool for the detection of A-Beta oligomers, proteins which cause Alzheimer’s diseaseA new test developed by Japanese scientists may revolutionize how and when physicians diagnose Alzheimer's disease. According to a research report published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), the new test measures proteins in the spinal fluid known to be one of the main causes of brain degeneration and memory impairment in Alzheimer's patients: high molecular weight A-Beta oligomers. This tool, once fully implemented, would allow physicians to diagnose and treat...

It seemed somewhat unlikely, but in recent years an old Russian hay fever pill had become one of the world’s best hopes for treating the growing epidemic of Alzheimer’s disease. But those hopes were dashed on Wednesday when the drug failed in its first late-stage clinical trial, dealing a blow not only to patients with Alzheimer’s and their families but to the companies developing the treatment — a start-up in San Francisco called Medivation and the world’s largest drug company, Pfizer. The companies said in a statement that the drug, called Dimebon, had shown virtually no effect after six months...

For years, a prevailing theory has been that one of the chief villains in Alzheimer’s disease has no real function other than as a waste product that the brain never properly disposed of. The material, a protein called beta amyloid, or A-beta, piles up into tough plaques that destroy signals between nerves. When that happens, people lose their memory, their personality changes and they stop recognizing friends and family. But now researchers at Harvard suggest that the protein has a real and unexpected function — it may be part of the brain’s normal defenses against invading bacteria and other microbes....

Those who live in industrialized countries have easy access to healthy food and nutritional supplements, but magnesium deficiencies are still common. That's a problem because new research from Tel Aviv University suggests that magnesium, a key nutrient for the functioning of memory, may be even more critical than previously thought for the neurons of children and healthy brain cells in adults. Dr. Inna Slutsky of TAU's Sackler School of Medicine published results of a 5-year probe which has significant implications for the use of over-the-counter magnesium supplements.

Spontaneous refolding of amyloid fibres under mild conditions could provide insight into Alzheimer's disease claim scientists in the US. Amyloids are collections of twisted or misfolded proteins and often develop in the brains of people with a number of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. They have been considered to be the most thermodynamically stable form of protein as very harsh conditions are required to disrupt them. But Igor Lednev and his team at the University of Albany have found amyloid fibres change from one polymorph to another with just mild changes in solution temperature and salinity. Lednev hopes this discovery will provide insight...

Middle-aged could be screened at routine optician's visit A test that can detect Alzheimer's up to 20 years before any symptoms show is being developed by British scientists. The simple and inexpensive eye test could be part of routine examinations by high street opticians in as little as three years, allowing those in middle age to be screened. Dementia experts said it had the power to revolutionise the treatment of Alzheimer's by making it possible for drugs to be given in the earliest stages. The technique, being pioneered at University College London, could also speed up the development of medication...

Watertown, MA—Scientists at Boston Biomedical Research Institute (BBRI) and the University of Pennsylvania have found that combining two chemicals, one of which is the green tea component EGCG, can prevent and destroy a variety of protein structures known as amyloids. Amyloids are the primary culprits in fatal brain disorders such as Alzheimer's, Huntington's, and Parkinson's diseases. Their study, published in the current issue of Nature Chemical Biology (December 2009), may ultimately contribute to future therapies for these diseases. "These findings are significant because it is the first time a combination of specific chemicals has successfully destroyed diverse forms of amyloids...

Alzheimer's caused by cold sore virus? In a connection that sounds borderline preposterous, links have been accumulating between Alzheimer's disease and cold sores....Cold sores are caused by the herpes simplex virus type 1, a type that should not be confused with herpes symplex virus type 2 which is the cause of genital herpes. A growing body of research, suggests that the HSV-1 may also be responsible for the majority of Alzheimer's cases.... "There's clearly a very strong connection," says British researcher, Ruth Itzhaki, Ph.D., speaking one afternoon in her office at the University of Manchester, in northwestern England. A neurobiologist,...