New Study Links Herpes to Dementia
There is a new study out that links herpes to dementia. What does this mean? And should you be worried?
The study out of Sweden entitled, “Herpes Simplex Viral Infection Doubles the Risk of Dementia in a Contemporary Cohort of Older Adults: A Prospective Study,” gets right to the bottom line.
Researchers (Vestin et al., 2024) followed 1,000 70-year old subjects for 15 years. The researchers acknowledged that there still need to be additional studies for different risk groups, populations, and the impact of antivirals on dementia risk.
Interestingly, HSV-1 seems to be the primary factor in connections between herpes and dementia. I say this is “interesting” to me because one of the common questions I get about herpes is related to the lack of research around HSV-1.
As Vestin et al. (2024) said, additional research needs to be done to have more affirmative answers and guidance. Given the large population living with herpes, I don’t think this is something to cause added worry at this time. Further, there are many other risks to dementia, herpes is just one of them.