ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE: A NEUROSPIROCHETOSIS

Is there a direct connection between spirochetes (including the lyme spirochete) and Alzheimer's and or other forms of dementia? There is a huge rise in the cases of Alzheimer's disease and this is not just due to an aging population because Alzheimer's is striking people at much younger ages. There is also a corresponding exponential rise in the number of cases of Lyme disease. Many people who harbor the Lyme disease spirochete do not even know they are infected. People with healthy immune systems may ward off a symptomatic case of Lyme until aging produces a weakening of the immune system where symptoms then become evident. In many cases Lyme disease is underdiagnosed and undertreated. It is called The Great Imitator.....as is its close cousin Syphilis ...and can mimic many different conditions.

 It is imperative that we begin to look for the causes of Alzheimer's and not just treat the symptoms!! Of course there is never much of a profit in a cure or in prevention, which is one of the main reasons that important studies , such as the one below, often are not acted upon. Let's be wise and realize that researching for the true benefit of others does not have to take anything "good" away from ourselves. We don't have to take away health or money from others in order for us to have what we need personally for a healthy prosperous life.This is a different perspective, an older one that we have been drawn away from...... but it is a better perspective.....and it can work.

Alzheimer's disease - a neurospirochetosis. Analysis of the evidence following Koch's and Hill's criteria.

Judith Miklossy

Journal of Neuroinflammation, 2011 Aug 4;8(1):90.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1742-2094-8-90

Abstract (provisional)

It is established that chronic spirochetal infection can
cause slowly progressive dementia, brain atrophy and amyloid
deposition in late neurosyphilis. Recently it has been
suggested that various types of spirochetes, in an analogous
way to Treponema pallidum, could cause dementia and may be
involved in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Here, we review all data available in the literature on the
detection of spirochetes in AD and critically analyze the
association and causal relationship between spirochetes and
AD following established criteria of Koch and Hill. The
results show a statistically significant association between
spirochetes and AD (P = 1.5 x 10-17, OR = 20, 95% CI = 8-60,
N = 247). When neutral techniques recognizing all types of
spirochetes were used, or the highly prevalent periodontal
pathogen Treponemas were analyzed, spirochetes were observed
in the brain in more than 90% of AD cases. Borrelia
burgdorferi was detected in the brain in 25.3% of AD cases
analyzed and was 13 times more frequent in AD compared to
controls. Periodontal pathogen Treponemas (T. pectinovorum,
T. amylovorum, T. lecithinolyticum, T. maltophilum, T.
medium, T. socranskii) and Borrelia burgdorferi were

detected using species specific PCR and antibodies.

Importantly, co-infection with several spirochetes occurs in
AD. The pathological and biological hallmarks of AD were
reproduced in vitro.

The analysis of reviewed data following Koch's and Hill's
postulates shows a probable causal relationship between
neurospirochetosis and AD. Persisting inflammation and
amyloid deposition initiated and sustained by chronic
spirochetal infection form together with the various
hypotheses suggested to play a role in the pathogenesis of
AD a comprehensive entity. As suggested by Hill, once the
probability of a causal relationship is established prompt
action is needed. Support and attention should be given to
this field of AD research. Spirochetal infection occurs
years or decades before the manifestation of dementia. As
adequate antibiotic and anti-inflammatory therapies are
available, as in syphilis, one might prevent and eradicate
dementia.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1742-2094-8-90

The open access article is available as a provisional .pdf file:

http://www.jneuroinflammation.com/content/pdf/1742-2094-8-90.pdf 

The fully formatted PDF and HTML versions are in production.

PLEASE SEE THE ALZHEIMER'S VIDEOS IN THE SIDEBAR OF THIS BLOG, WHICH DESCRIBE ONE DOCTOR'S PERSONAL EXPERIENCE and RESEARCH INTO COCONUT OIL and ALZHEIMER'S

High quality coconut oil from Mountain Rose Herbs 

A BOOK I JUST REVIEWED.....STOP ALZHEIMER'S NOW is one of the most important books I have ever read and gives much practical advice on how to prevent and to help reverse Alzheimer's. The author mentions Judith Miklossy's studies on the connections between spirochetes and Alzheimers and outlines a diet to help prevent and reverse dementia and even everyday memory problems. Here is my review of this crucially important book http://lymesentinel.blogspot.com/2011/07/stop-alzheimers-now.html

LYME DISEASE STUDY SHOWS EVIDENCE OF TRANSMISSION THROUGH CASUAL CONTACT

medicalecology.org

Lyme disease(Borrelia burgdorferi) often can afflict whole families, many times with no tick or rash being observed. Lyme disease can be very devastating and seems to be spreading everywhere. We are being told that this is due to global warming. I believe there is much more to the story. The older study below obviously indicates that Lyme disease can be transmitted casually. This means that you do not need a tick or insect vector to spread Lyme disease.

It has often been suspected that Lyme disease...like its close cousin syphilis...can be transmitted through sexual intercourse, through the placenta, through breast milk and even through the blood supply. Lida Mattman (an expert on Stealth Pathogens such as Borrelia Burgdorferi(Bb), claims she has found Bb in human tears.

Bb has been found in semen. Some women who have had miscarriages, have had the fetus and the placenta tested for Lyme disease. Elise Brady Moe, who testified at a Lyme Hearing in CT, had several miscarriages while she herself was infected with Lyme. She had the testing done on the fetus and placenta and they were positive for the Lyme spirochete(Bb).

Yet the mainstream medical industrial complex....government agencies, corporations and medical universities....is denying there is any evidence of these more direct means of transmission....never mind the very real possibility that humans can acquire Lyme disease through casual transmission! Casual transmission can include passing infection through touch, sneezing, drinking out of the same glass...etc.

Why don't we hear more about this? Why are not more studies being done on the many different possible routes of Lyme disease transmission? We need to stem the tide of this epidemic before it disables our nation. Is the denial and lack of research in this area for the purpose of keeping people ill to fuel the profits of our medical system....what is becoming a medical dictatorship?

BELOW IS A Bb CASUAL TRANSMISSION STUDY USING MICE

Am J Trop Med Hyg. 1986 Mar;35(2):355-9.

Experimental inoculation of Peromyscus spp. with Borrelia burgdorferi: evidence of contact transmission.

Burgess EC, Amundson TE, Davis JP, Kaslow RA, Edelman R.

In order to determine if Peromyscus spp. could become infected with the Lyme disease spirochete (Borrelia burgdorferi) by direct inoculation and to determine the duration of spirochetemia, 4 P. leucopus and 5 P. maniculatus were inoculated by the intramuscular, intraperitoneal, and subcutaneous routes with an isolate of B. burgdorferi obtained from the blood of a trapped wild P. leucopus from Camp McCoy, Wisconsin. All of the mice developed antibodies to B. burgdorferi which reached a peak indirect immunofluorescent (IFA) geometric mean antibody titer of 10 log2 21 days post-inoculation. B burgdorferi was recovered from the blood of 1 P. maniculatus 21 days post-inoculation.

One uninfected Peromyscus of each species was housed in the same cage with the infected Peromyscus as a contact control. Both of the contact controls developed IFA B. burgdorferi antibodies by day 14, indicating contact infection. To determine if B. burgdorferi was being transmitted by direct contact, 5 uninfected P. leucopus and 5 uninfected P. maniculatus were caged with 3 B. burgdorferi infected P. leucopus and 3 infected P. maniculatus, respectively. Each of these contact-exposed P. leucopus and P. maniculatus developed antibodies to B. burgdorferi, and B. burgdorferi was isolated from the blood of 1 contact-exposed P. maniculatus 42 days post-initial contact.

These findings show that B. burgdorferi can be transmitted by direct contact without an arthropod vector.

PMID: 3513648 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Antibiotics For Multiple Sclerosis And Schizophrenia

A Study of antibiotic treatment for psychotic symptoms and MS....

Med Hypotheses. 2009 Mar 5.

Infectious aetiologies for multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia and the chronic fatigue syndrome and their treatment with antibiotics.

Close similarities in the courses of multiple sclerosis and schizophrenia laid the theoretical ground for attempting to find a common infectious aetiology for the two diseases. Chlamydia pneumoniae, which belongs to the rickettsial family of microorganisms has been linked to both diseases. It is postulated that since rickettsial microorganisms are ubiquitous in human populations they and the human species normally live in peaceful coexistence. In rare cases, for unknown reasons, varieties of them may become aggressive and pathogenic. The kynurenic acid hypothesis of schizophrenia has attracted much attention. It also seems to have initiated a paradigmatic shift from the hitherto prevailing serological research
approach to one which focuses on immunological factors.

An open clinical pilot study in which, during 2006, eight female and five male patients with psychotic symptoms were treated with a combination of antibiotics is presented, to which, in the beginning of 2007 two female patients suffering from severe and long standing chronic fatigue syndrome were added. On one year follow-up, six out of the eight female patients showed stable excellent treatment results, whereas two were rated as showing significant treatment results. Four of the five men who entered the study were suffering from chronic schizophrenia, whereas the fifth, was a case of severe acute catatonic schizophrenia. Two of the male patients showed significant treatment results, whereas three of them were rated as having had a slight to moderate improvement. No less than three of the women had suffered their first episode of psychosis after giving birth to their first (and only) child. This finding,
as these women all responded excellently to treatment with antibiotics, indicates that post partum psychosis could be regarded as an infectious complication of childbirth of, as to the causative agent, unknown aetiology. High priority aught therefore be given to initiate controlled clinical trials with antibiotic treatment of this serious condition.

The otherwise promising results of the pilot study seem to warrant further and controlled clinical trials with treatment with antibiotics of patients with psychotic symptoms. As the second patient with psychotic symptoms to enter the study, had a long standing history of chronic fatigue, where an initial treatment with the antidepressant fluoxetine had only worsened her condition, whereas ninety days of treatment with antibiotics, combined with vitamin B injections, effected a complete recovery, the author decided, when two patients with long standing and incapacitating chronic fatigue syndromes sought the clinic in February and March 2007, to include them in the study. The first of them, after sixty days of treatment with antibiotics showed excellent treatment results on follow-up one year later, whereas the second, who also took the combination of antibiotics for sixty days, was rated as having shown a significant improvement.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19269110?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
Full Text is available online but you have to pay for it.

PLEOMORPHISM IN LYME DISEASE

Persisting Atypical And Cystic Forms In Lyme Borreliosis

Journal of Neuroinflammation 2008, 5:40 doi:10.1186/1742-2094-5-40FULL TEXT

Persisting atypical and cystic forms of Borrelia burgdorferi and local inflammation in Lyme neuroborreliosis
Judith Miklossy, Sandor Kasas , Anne D. Zurn, Sherman McCall, Sheng Yu, Patrick L. McGeer1

Kinsmen Laboratory of Neurological Research, University of British Columbia, 2255 Wesbrook Mall, 3N6, Vancouver, B.C. V6T1Z3, Canada 2 Laboratoire de Physique de la Matière Vivante, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland and Département de Biologie Cellulaire et de Morphologie, Université de Lausanne, 1005 Lausanne, Switzerland 3 Department of Experimental Surgery, Lausanne University Hospital, CH-101 1 Lausanne, Switzerland 4 Pathology Laboratory, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), 1425 Porter St., Ft. Detrick, MD 21702-5011

Abstract Background: The long latent stage seen in syphilis, followed by chronic central nervous system infection and inflammation, can be explained by the persistence of atypical cystic and granular forms of Treponema pallidum. We investigated whether a similar situation may occur in Lyme neuroborreliosis.Method: Atypical forms of Borrelia burgdorferi spirochetes were induced exposing cultures of Borrelia burgdorferi (strains B31 and ADB1) to such unfavorable conditions as osmotic and heat shock, and exposure to the binding agents Thioflavin S and Congo red. We also analyzed whether these forms may be induced in vitro, following infection of primary chicken and rat neurons, as well as rat and human astrocytes. We further analyzed whether atypical forms similar to those induced in vitro may also occur in vivo, in brains of three patients with Lyme neuroborreliosis. We used immunohistochemical methods to detect evidence of neuroinflammation in the form of reactive microglia and astrocytes. Results: Under these conditions we observed atypical cystic, rolled and granular forms of these spirochetes. We characterized these abnormal forms by histochemical, immunohistochemical, dark field and atomic force microscopy (AFM) methods.

The atypical and cystic forms found in the brains of three patients with neuropathologically confirmed Lyme neuroborreliosis were identical to those induced in vitro. We also observed nuclear fragmentation of the infected astrocytes using the TUNEL method. Abundant HLA-DR positive microglia and GFAP positive reactive astrocytes were present in the cerebral cortex. Conclusion: The results indicate that atypical extra- and intracellular pleomorphic and cystic forms of Borrelia burgdorferi and local neuroinflammation occur in the brain in chronic Lyme neuroborreliosis. The persistence of these more resistant spirochete forms, and their intracellular location in neurons and glial cells, may explain the long latent stage and persistence of Borrelia infection. The results also suggest that Borrelia burgdorferi may induce cellular dysfunction and apoptosis. The detection and recognition of atypical, cystic and granular forms in infected tissues is essential for the diagnosis and the treatment as they can occur in the absence of the typical spiral Borrelia form...

FULL TEXTPersisting atypical and cystic forms of Borrelia burgdorferi and local inflammation in Lyme neuroborreliosis

Lyme Disease, Alzheimer's and Chronic Inflammation

Journal of Alzheimer's Disease Vol 6 No. 6 Pages 639-649 Dec. 2004

Miklossy, Kamel Khalili, Lise Gern, Rebecca L. Ericson, Pushpa Darekar, Lorie Bolle, Jean Hurlimann, Bruce J. Paster

Borrelia burgdorferi persists in the brain in chronic Lyme neuroborreliosis and may be associated with Alzheimer's disease

Abstract: The cause, or causes, of the vast majority of Alzheimer’s disease cases are unknown. A number of contributing factors have been postulated, including infection. It has long been known that the spirochete Treponema pallidum, which is the infective agent for syphilis, can in its late stages cause dementia, chronic inflammation, cortical atrophy and amyloid deposition. Spirochetes of unidentified types and strains have previously been observed in the blood, CSF and brain of 14 AD patients tested and absent in 13 controls. In three of these AD cases spirochetes were grown in a medium selective for Borrelia burgdorferi. In the present study, the phylogenetic analysis of these spirochetes was made. Positive identification of the agent as Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto was based on genetic and molecular analyses. Borrelia antigens and genes were co-localized with beta-amyloid deposits in these AD cases.

The data indicate that Borrelia burgdorferi may persist in the brain and be associated with amyloid plaques in AD. They suggest that these spirochetes, perhaps in an analogous fashion to Treponema pallidum, may contribute to dementia, cortical atrophy and amyloid deposition. Further in vitro and in vivo studies may bring more insight into the potential role of spirochetes in AD.

Is Alzheimer's A Manifestation of Lyme Disease?

Miklossy J, Neuroreport 1993 Jul;4(7):841-8 as of 23 September 1998 NeuroReport 4, §41-§48 (1993) NeuroReport Vol. 4 No. 7 July 1993 [pages 841-848]

Alzheimer's Disease--A Spirochetosis?
Judith Miklossy University Institute of Pathology, Division of Neuropathology, University of Lausanne, Rue du Bugnon 27, 1005 Lausanne, Switzerland

The aetiology of Alzheimer's disease (AD), which affects a large proportion of the aged population is unknown and the treatment unresolved. The role of beta amyloid protein (ßA4), derived from a larger amyloid precursor protein (APP) in AD is the subject of intense research. Here I report observations that in 14 autopsy cases, with histopathologically confirmed AD, spirochetes were found in blood and cerebrospinal fluid and, moreover, could be isolated from brain tissue. Thirteen age-matched control cases were without spirochetes. Reference strains of spirochetes and those isolated from brains of AD patients, showed positive immunoreaction with monoclonal antibody against the ß amyloid precursor protein. These observations suggest that spirochetes may be one of the causes of AD and that they may be the source of the ß amyloid deposited in the AD brain. .....See full text http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Retreat/1593/ad-miklossy-study.txt

New Findings of Lyme Disease Study

New Findings of Lyme Disease Study
By Lauren Castillo at 21 October, 2008, 7:03 am
Viral Genetics, a biotechnology company that discovers and develops immune-based therapies, today unveiled to the general public initial findings of its ongoing Lyme Disease study. Viral Genetics initially unveiled its new model and early findings on Saturday, October 18th, at the 2008 International Lyme & Associated Diseases Society (ILADS) Scientific Session. The study, which was financed by a grant specifically allocated for Lyme Disease research, could also potentially offer answers to other immune-based diseases including HIV/AIDS. The team hopes the study will settle the longstanding and controversial debate in the medical community over methods of treatment.........Read More..... http://healthtorial.com/2008/10/21/new-findings-of-lyme-disease-study/