India, May 27 -- A new study suggests that the virus responsible for cold sores, called herpes simplex virus type 1 or HSV-1, might be linked to Alzheimer's disease.
Researchers published their findings in BMJ Open after reviewing data from a large U.S. health insurance database. They studied over 340,000 people aged 50 and above who were diagnosed with Alzheimer's between 2006 and 2021. Each person with Alzheimer's was compared to someone of similar age, gender, and location who didn't have the disease to reduce bias in the study.
They checked how many people had been diagnosed with HSV-1 and whether they had taken antiviral medicine for it. They found that 0.44 percent of people with Alzheimer's had a previous HSV-1 infection, compared ...