Abstract
A recent report in the journal, Neurology, documents age-normalized, nation-specific (e.g., United States and Western Europe), progressive decrease of dementia, beginning about 25 years ago. This observation has, thus far, not had explanation. We begin our proposed explanation with the following previous disease construct. (1) Some dementia is caused by innate immune over-response to infections. (2) The innate immune over-response occurs via excessive conversion of amyloid protein to α-sheet conformation. (3) This conversion evolved to inhibit invading microbes by binding microbe-associated α-sheet, e.g., in hyper-expanded capsid intermediates of some viruses. The rarity of human α-sheet makes this inhibition specific for microbial invaders. As foundation, here we observe directly, for the first time, extreme, sheet-like outer shell thinness in a hyper-expanded capsid of phage T3. Based on phage/herpesvirus homology, we propose the following. The above decrease in dementia is caused by varicella-zoster virus (VZV) vaccination, USFDA-approved about 25 years ago; VZV is a herpesvirus and causes chickenpox and shingles. In China and Japan, a cotemporaneous non-decrease is explained by lower anti-VZV vaccination. Co-assembly extension of α-sheet is relatively independent of amino acid sequence. Thus, we project that additional dementia is suppressible by vaccination against other viruses, including other herpesviruses.
Highlights
(1) Some dementia is caused by innate immune over-response to infections
Based on phage/herpesvirus homology, we propose the following
The above decrease in dementia is caused by varicella-zoster virus (VZV) vaccination, USFDA-approved about 25 years ago; VZV is a herpesvirus and causes chickenpox and shingles
Summary
In a previous study [1] of 49,202 individuals in the United States and Europe, the finding was made that (1) incidence of dementia dramatically increased with age, as previously reviewed in [2], and (2) in any given age range, the incidence has been significantly decreasing for the last ~25 years. The individuals of this study were from the United States (2596), France (2960), Netherlands (10,235), Sweden (1168), United Kingdom (6441 + 11,788), France (8250) and Iceland (5764) [1] These countries have relatively advanced health care, supporting the hypothesis that improvement in health care is a reason for the decrease. It should provide explanation for the observation, quoted in [1], that such decrease was not observed in either China [3] or Japan [4], both with advanced heath care systems Developing such an explanatory hypothesis, within the strategic objective of preventing dementia, is the aim of the current communication
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