Scientists close in on cause of Alzheimer’s as they set sights on a common virus

Cutting-edge research suggests that a virus, which infects a million Americans each year, could raise your risk of dementia.

Stanford researchers found that shingles, a virus that causes a painful rash, could be increase your risk of developing Alzheimer’s, as people who received a vaccine for it were 20 percent less likely develop the disorder years later.

This emerging field of research, linking viruses that cause chickenpox, herpes and shingles to dementia, could be the key to making breakthroughs in the Alzheimer’s mystery, experts say.

Shingles is a viral infection that is caused by the same virus responsible for chickenpox. Sufferers get rashes of blisters that are painful and can be itchy

Researchers have only recently begun investigating the link between viruses, like varciella-zoster, which causes Shingles, and neurodegenerative disease. They are also examining the virus that causes herpes, which is in the same family as varciella-zoster

At random, as someone ages, the virus can reactivate, travelling along the nervous system to the skin according to Mayo Clinic. Doctors are unsure what causes the virus to reactivate, but it tends to happen in people as they age or get sick, which suggests that it could have do with a weakened immune system.

About one million people in the US get shingles each year, according to the CDC.

At the same time, 500,000 Americans are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s each year. Despite how common the disease is, research into the cause of the disease has made little progress over the past decades.

Dr Geldsetzer’s study, which represents a new theory for studying the disease, has yet to be peer reviewed by other scientists.

Still it has been made available online through the National Institute of Health since May 2023, and widely approved by other scientists in public.

The study looked at 300,000 health records of people born in Wales from 1925 to 1942 and tracked them over time – looking for their shingles vaccination, shingles diagnosis and dementia diagnosis.

In Wales, they designed shingle vaccination guidelines to have an age cutoff – based on data that showed the vaccination wasn’t effective in people over 80.

So the researchers had two groups to study – those born before 1933 who didn’t get vaccinated and those born after 1933 who did.

The groups were otherwise similar in age, pre-existing conditions and other health history.

They found that vaccination reduced risk of developing dementia by 20 percent in the seven years after getting the shot.

‘We’re looking at a causal effect. And it’s specific to dementia. There is something clearly going on here.’ Pascal Geldsetzer, Stanford University epidemiologist told STAT.

To make sure what they were seeing wasn’t specific to Wales alone, Dr Geldsetzer and his team then performed similar analysis in the United Kingdom and Australia, and found the same trend.

At the same time, researchers at Oxford University were performing studies that added to the theory linking shingles to Alzheimer’s.

A 2024 study published in the journal Nature looked at the health records of 200,000 Americans, seeing how they fared after receiving a form of shingles vaccine approved in 2017 called Shingrix.

A 2024 study showed the vaccine Shingrix was linked to a ‘significantly’ lower risk of dementia compared to Zostavax and jabs for other illnesses. This adds weight to other emerging research suggesting a link between shingles and dementia

The vaccine reduced risk of dementia by 17 percent for six years after it was delivered when compared to older shingles vaccines that were less effective.

Paul Harrison, the lead author and a professor of psychiatry at Oxford University told STAT: ‘I’ve always been a vaccine believer, but the Covid vaccine reinforced to me that there may be long-term benefits to vaccination beyond simply stopping short-term effects.’

Since the link between shingles and dementia is still so new, research has yet to explain how shingles may be causing some cases of the disease.

They think it may have to do with the period of time when the virus hides out in your nervous system after catching chicken pox.

Though it seems like the virus is harmless, research from the Netherlands suggests that your immune system is actively working to keep it in check while it camps out in the body.

When you age or get sick or the immune system is otherwise busy, this gives an opportunity for the virus to strike out in other parts of the body.

This includes the blood vessels, which neurologists from the University of Alabama has found can cause disruption to the blood flow of the brain.

Reducing or interrupting blood flow to the brain over a prolonged period of time can put the delicate cells of the brain under stress – causing damage or death that could add up over time, contributing to greater risk for dementia.

Whatever the cause of a virus-driven dementia might be, scientists like Dr Maria Nagel, a University of Colorado neurovirologist who studies shingles, are excited that researchers are looking into it.

For a long time, the majority of Alzheimer’s research and funding focused on just one theory.

So studying the link between neurodegeneration and viruses is a new opportunity, bringing new scientific minds to the puzzle that is Alzheimer’s.

Thinking about all the new people who have joined in Alzheimer’s research in recent years, Dr Nagel told STAT: ‘I really do believe that in the next 10 years or so we’re going to see huge strides in finding new mechanisms and finding new ways to try to slow things down.’

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13975165/scientists-alzheimers-cause-common-infection.html

INCREDIBLE SCIENCE: PANDO: The world’s largest and oldest tree is between 16,000-81,000 Years Old!!!

DNA analysis suggests Pando, a quaking aspen in Utah with thousands of stems connected by their roots, is between 16,000 and 81,000 years old

By James Woodford
1 November 2024

Some 47,000 trees in Utah’s Fishlake National Forest are in fact a single, ancient organism named Pando

George Rose/Getty Images

The world’s largest tree has been rigorously dated for the first time, confirming it is at least 16,000 years old.

Named Pando, the tree is a quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) with around 47,000 stems connected by a root system that sprawls about 43 hectares in Utah’s Fishlake National Forest. It has long been thought to be among the most ancient living things on Earth, but scientists didn’t know for certain how old it is.

This is a paid article. Here is the source link: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2454482-worlds-largest-tree-is-also-among-the-oldest-living-organisms/?utm_source=nsday&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nsday_041124&utm_term=Newsletter%20NSDAY_Daily

Video: IMPORTANT: The Question Scientists NEVER ASK: What is the Speed of Light? – The Late Dr Tom Van Flandern – My Comments

[I actually knew Tom Van Flandern and I subscribed to his work decades ago. He ran an organisation called: Meta Research. He wrote an awesome book called "

Dark Matter, Missing Planets and New Comets" in 1993. I have a copy. It's an awesome book. Dr Van Flandern was an astronomer, and he points out consistently that the speed of Gravity has to be faster than the speed of light. In fact it may move many thousands of times faster than light. I noticed in the comments of the video that people can't grasp what Dr Van Flandern was pointing out. It's great to see someone raising these issues again. Jan]

Here’s the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmbaqmX016M

AWESOME AMERICAN TECHNOLOGY: Voyager 1 spacecraft phones home with transmitter that hasn’t been used since 1981

Following recent communication issues, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft resorted to using a backup radio transmitter that has been inactive since 1981.

The interstellar explorer experienced a brief pause in communications after putting itself in a protective state to conserve power. This was triggered by a command sent on Oct. 16 from NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) — a global array of giant radio antennas — instructing the spacecraft to turn on one of its heaters.

The mission’s flight team first realized there was an issue with Voyager 1 on Oct. 18, when the spacecraft failed to respond to that command. The team later discovered that the spacecraft had turned off its primary X-band radio transmitter and instead switched over to its secondary S-band radio transmitter, which uses less power, according to a statement from NASA.

"The transmitter shut-off seems to have been prompted by the spacecraft’s fault protection system, which autonomously responds to onboard issues," NASA officials said in the statement. "The team is now working to gather information that will help them figure out what happened and return Voyager 1 to normal operations."

Voyager 1’s fault protection system can be triggered for a number of reasons, such as if the spacecraft overdraws its power supply. If that happens, the spacecraft will turn off all non-essential systems to conserve power and remain in flight.

After sending instructions to Voyager 1 on Oct. 16, the team expected to receive data back from the spacecraft within a couple of days; it normally takes about 23 hours for a command to travel more than 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) to reach the spacecraft in interstellar space, and then another 23 hours for the flight team on Earth to receive a signal back.

However, on Oct. 18, the team was unable to detect Voyager 1’s signal on the X-band frequency that the DSN antennas were listening for. This was because, to use less power, the spacecraft’s fault protection system lowered the rate at which its radio transmitter was sending back data. The flight team was able to locate a signal later that day – but then, on Oct. 19, communication with Voyager 1 stopped entirely when its X-band transmitter was turned off.

The spacecraft’s fault protection system is believed to have been triggered twice more, ultimately causing it to switch to the S-band radio transmitter, which, prior to that date, hadn’t been used since 1981. Given the spacecraft is located much farther away in interstellar space today than it was 43 years ago, the flight team was not sure a signal on the S-band frequency could be detected — especially because it transmits a significantly fainter signal while using less power.

However, the team didn’t want to risk sending another signal to the X-band transmitter and triggering the fault protection system again. So, instead, a command was sent to the S-band transmitter on Oct. 22. Two days later, on Oct. 24, the team was finally able to reconnect with Voyager 1.

Now, the team will investigate what may have triggered the spacecraft’s fault protection system in the first place, given Voyager 1 should have had ample power to operate the heater. However, it may be weeks before operators identify the underlying issue, according to the statement.

Voyager 1, which launched in 1977, ventured into interstellar space in 2012, becoming the first spacecraft to cross the boundary of our solar system. Its time in deep space has taken a toll on its instruments and caused an increasing number of technical issues. Earlier this year, the team had to fix a separate communications glitch that was causing the spacecraft to transmit gibberish.

While spacecraft’s advanced age and distance from Earth can make maintenance challenging, Voyager 1 continues to return vital data from beyond the solar system.

Source: https://www.space.com/space-exploration/missions/voyager-1-spacecraft-phones-home-with-transmitter-that-hasnt-been-used-since-1981?utm_term=AF536F6D-055D-443A-91F7-FD448D0CCA73&lrh=4cd1bd23c622eeb1274411ac3b55b43215b8c098a20f14a3285c9e8ae13a98ca&utm_campaign=58E4DE65-C57F-4CD3-9A5A-609994E2C5A9&utm_medium=email&utm_content=B0D4DAD1-DAA3-4E5C-8A86-71545CA77862&utm_source=SmartBrief