Natural Herpes Treatment

People who have herpes but don’t know it can still be passing along the infection - or “shedding” it, Reuters news service reports. One in six adults in the U.S. has genital herpes, making screening for the disease very important. Genital herpes not only causes painful blisters but it can increase your risk of contracting HIV/AIDS.

“The people who are symptomatic are really the tip of the iceberg,” said Dr. Christine Johnston, of the University of Washington in Seattle. “We are not having any impact on the epidemic by ignoring it.”

In Johnson’s study, researchers followed 498 people who had antibodies in their blood against genital herpes. This shows they had all been infected, even though about one in six never had any symptoms. Although it is unclear how much virus is needed to infect someone else, Johnston said, the amount of virus shed in the absence of sores was the same for people even without symptoms. Doctors recommend frank conversations with your partner about herpes.

Is there evidence that  herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV1) is linked to Alzheimer’s disease? Canadian researchers Luc Letenneur and Karine Peres demonstrated a dramatic increase in antibodies directed against HSV1 in Alzheimer’s patients compared to age-matched individuals without the disease.

Also, professor Ruth Itzhaki from the University of Manchester explored the relationship of HSV1 to Alzheimer’s disease in her landmark article published in 2008. Entitled “Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 in Alzheimer’s disease: The Enemy Within,” Dr. Itzhaki revealed that HSV1 infects the brains of 90% of adults. If HSV1 is the cause Alzheimer’s, that would be a necessary characteristic when compared with the very high prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease.  She points out, HSV1 remains for life in the nervous system and may undergo periodic reactivation causing persistent brain inflammation. For example, HSV1 is the cause of recurrent fever blisters that occur when the virus gets activated in the brain. The most compelling evidence linking HSV1 to Alzheimer’s disease is her recent discovery that HSV1 DNA is actually located  within the beta amyloid plaque - the hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Itzhaki has concluded, “Our present data suggest that this virus is a major cause of amyloid plaques and hence probably a significant etiological factor in Alzheimer’s disease. They point to the usage of antiviral agents to treat the disease and possibly of vaccination to prevent it.”

Beta amyloid accumulates in the Alzheimer’s brain as a defense to rid the brain of a variety of bacteria and viruses.

A research team  at Tufts University and the University of Pennsylvania have uncovered the unusual structure of a key member of the protein complex that allows a herpes virus to invade cells. The new map details an essential piece of the herpes virus “cell-entry machinery,” that provides scientists with a new target for antiviral drugs.

“We hope that determining the structure of this essential piece of the herpes virus cell-entry machinery will help us answer some of the many questions about how herpes virus initiates infection. Knowing the structures of cell-entry proteins will help us find the best strategy for interfering with this pervasive family of viruses,” said Tirumala K. Chowdary, a postdoctoral associate at Tufts.

For now, there is no cure for herpes viruses. Upon infection, the viruses remain in the body for life and can stay inactive for long periods of time. When active, these various  herpes viruses can cause cold sores, blindness, encephalitis or cancers.