Guess what? Type 2 diabetes now.

It hardly surprises me now to find associations between the commonest herpes virus HSV1 and common diseases.  Here's a link to research that investigated HSV1 and type 2 diabetes:

An association of HSV1 with type 2 diabetes

This research concludes:

A significant association of HSV-1 infection with type 2 diabetes was found in the present study.

Again, particularly interesting for me is that type 2 diabetes can have an impact on cognitive function.  See this link (and others via google):

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13803390490514875

It's important to note that as yet I haven't read anything suggesting a direct link between the virus and the cognitive impairment that can occur in type 2 diabetes so the link with the virus may not be as direct as it is in the other diseases I've blogged about .

Bipolar also. What next?

Further searching has revealed a link between HV1 (the commonest herpes virus) and bipolar:

Infection with herpes simplex virus type 1 is associated with cognitive deficits in bipolar disorder

This is the conclusion of the article:

Serologic evidence of herpes simplex virus type 1 infection is associated with cognitive impairment in individuals with bipolar disorder.

So now I have found research linking this virus with cognitive impairment in Alzheimer's, schizophrenia and bipolar.

Surely, research into what this virus is capable of needs to be drastically escalated.

In the meantime, why isn't the comparatively safe and cheap anti-viral drug aciclovir prescribed to try and halt the cognitive impairment in all these diseases? 

Herpes, Alzheimer's and schizophrenia - yes!

I was reading about schizophrenia, prompted by an article about a young girl diagnosed with it.  Her hallucinations were described and I couldn't help noticing similarities between her symptoms and S's.

Further searches appeared to suggest possible links with Alzheimer's and dementia more generally.  It's clear that in schizophrenia, whilst the psychotic symptoms predominate (they're actually referred to as positive symptoms), there are also less prominent symptoms of cognitive deficits which closely resemble those of dementia. 

These include the loss of concentration skills, memory, coordinated movement and dexterity.  And these are associated with the same kind of brain shrinkage, in the same regions of the brain, as is found in patients with dementia.

The next obvious step was to google herpes and schizophrenia.  By now, I wasn't surprised to get a large number of interesting results.

Cold sore virus and schizophrenia

You really should read the article  -  it's not too long  -  but this extract is so similar to statements I've read about herpes and dementia:

"We're finding that some portion of cognitive impairment usually blamed solely on the disease of schizophrenia might actually be a combination of schizophrenia and prior exposure to herpes simplex virus 1 infection, which reproduces in the brain," says study leader David J. Schretlen, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The research, described in the May Schizophrenia Research, could lead to new ways to treat or prevent the cognitive impairment that typically accompanies this mental illness, including with antiviral drugs, the scientists say.

Citation: Disabled World News (2010-05-29) - Cold sore virus may contribute to cognitive and brain abnormalities in schizophrenia: http://www.disabled-world.com/health/dermatology/herpes/herpes-schizophrenia.php#ixzz2IVFFwy6X

I need to think about all this and to do some further searching.  But clearly HV1 is an even more ubiquitous and harmful virus than most people think.