Drugs with antiviral action will save from dementia
Last reviewed: 15.08.2021
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Doctors from the UK suggest using antiviral drugs to prevent senile dementia in patients with herpes.
Taking into account the results of the latest research, soon the doctors will make changes in the scheme of prevention and treatment of dementia. A couple of months ago, scientific representatives of the University of Arizona have already proved the existence of the relationship between senile dementia and the presence of herpesvirus in the body. Thus, post-lethal analysis of brain tissues of those deceased from dementia of patients demonstrated that the majority of patients in the body had the virus of the sixth and seventh types.
This time, experts from the University of Manchester analyzed the results of this, as well as two more studies that examined Alzheimer's and herpes infection. Scientists have determined that antiviral treatment and the introduction of a vaccine against herpes can serve as a good prevention of cognitive impairment.
Experts identified a group of patients consisting of more than eight thousand people aged 50 years. All the claimed participants suffered a confirmed herpetic infection. In addition, a control group consisting of 25 thousand healthy participants of the same age category was created. Patient follow-up lasted ten years. During this time, it was observed that the incidence of senile dementia in the first group was 2.5 times higher than in the second group. However, this caused a special surprise among scientists: carrying out intensive antiviral treatment reduced the likelihood of developing dementia tenfold.
"It's interesting, but intensive, even short-term, antiviral treatment can reduce the likelihood of the disease developing in people with confirmed presence of herpesvirus," - comments Dr. Late, a representative of the University of Edinburgh. According to scientists, we can talk about the first step in the search for ways to prevent dementia with the help of an antiviral drug course.
Experts advise doctors to think about the results and take into account this fact: for patients older than 50 years who have some of the risk factors for the development of senile dementia, if there is a herpetic infection, treatment with antiviral drugs is indicated first.
The scientists expressed the hope that carrying out mass vaccination against herpes will also be able to solve the problem of development of senile cognitive impairments. If vaccination is carried out even in childhood, most cases of Alzheimer's disease could be prevented.
The details are presented by Professor Neurobiologist Ruth Itzaki and Dr. Richard Late, the infectious disease specialist, on the website of the University of Edinburgh (www.ed.ac.uk).
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