Re: Re:Alzheimer's Disease: The Rise And Fall Of A Concept

"Xerxes" <x@xxxxxxxxx> wrote

Recently I saw an article suggesting that Alz is basically a vascular
disease, brought about by tiny bleedings in the brain etc etc

Yes.

The infectious hypothesis is supported by these findings.
Inflammation of the cappilaries is common in many neurodegenerative
disorders.
The damage to the CNS is in that case a combination of (auto)immune
reactions, localized lack of oxygen and the actions of the infectious agent
itself (a bacterium releases neurotoxins and eats away at certain substances
like myelin, moreover it does penetrative damage in to cells in its attempt
to hide from the immune system, many chronic CNS infections are
intracellular or cell-wall deficient forms). Tiny bloodvessels get inflamed
for various reasons. When the bacterium is microearophillic, it hangs out in
(often immune-privilleged) sites like tendons or the inner eye or the
cappilaries that take away oxygen-poor blood. Those cappilaries will get
inflamed. Tropisms for various tissues depend mainly on the nutritional
needs and the tolerance for oxygen of the organism.

Almost all chronic neurodegenerative diseases (ALS, Alzheimer, MS, ME,
Parkinsons) might be caused by bacterial infection.
I am convinced - I *know* that most neurodegenerative disorders are caused
by bacteria (mycoplasma's and spiroplasma's).

This does not imply that they are easily curable with antibiotics however -
bacteria have a whole arsenal in countermeasures, like encysting, shedding
of cell wall components, changing OSP's (outer surface proteins), becoming a
mycoplasma, efflux pumping and drilling a hole in fibroblasts (hitching a
ride inside a killer cell..). They can physically migrate away from the
antibiotic MIC's, they can stop producing cell wall (antibiotics act upon
their ability to produce new cell wall (bacteriostatics) or their ability to
produce good quality cell wall (beta-lactams, bacteriocides).

Another problem with neurological infections is that the antibiotics have a
hard time penetrating the blood-brain barrier. The only class of orals that
does that well enough are the tetracyclines (esp. doxycycline and
minocycline). An antibiotic needs to be both lipid-soluable and below 500
Daltons to pass the bbb. The bbb can be "opened" with certain chemicals
though, and it opens when you have meningitis.



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