Medical Horizens

[Gomez Adams]

The Texas measles outbreak has passed 500 cases.

 

[Zeedox]

Alzheimer's Could Be Linked to a Common Virus You Already Have

The common cold sore virus, which is often caught in childhood, usually stays in the body for life – quietly dormant in the nerves.

www.sciencealert.com

When we studied health records from hundreds of thousands of people in the UK, we saw something interesting. People who had shingles had only a slightly higher risk of developing dementia. Yet those who had the shingles vaccine were less likely to develop dementia at all.

A new Stanford University-led study gave similar results.

This supported our long-held proposal that preventing common infections could lower the risk of Alzheimer's. Consistently, studies by others showed that infections were indeed a risk and that some other vaccines were protective against Alzheimer's.

But when we used a treatment to reduce inflammation, the virus stayed inactive, and the damage didn't happen.

All of this suggests that the virus that causes cold sores could be an important contributor to Alzheimer's, especially in people with certain genetic risk factors. It also opens the door to possible new ways of preventing the disease, such as vaccines or antiviral treatments that stop the virus from waking up and harming the brain.

What began as a link between cold sores and memory loss has grown into a much bigger story – one that may help us understand, and eventually reduce, the risk of one of the most feared diseases of our time.

 

[Zeedox]

Man Bitten by 200 Snakes Helps Scientists Create a Super Antivenom

Tim Friede might be the world's most snakebit person—and his antibodies could hold the key to a truly universal snake antivenom.

gizmodo.com

Friede is a self-trained herpetologist and venomous snake collector. Nearly 20 years ago, he began letting himself get bitten on purpose to build immunity to snakebites. His first bites, according to NPR, landed him in the hospital with a coma for several days. But Friede recovered and continued his daring endeavor with fewer complications. Over the course of his life, he’s been bitten by venomous snakes some 200 times and he’s further injected himself with more than 700 doses of venom. Realizing that he was now hyper-immune to snakebites, he decided to reach out to other scientists so they could study him. In 2017, he finally connected with Jacob Glanville, the founder of Centivax.

The team’s three-agent cocktail was administered to mice exposed to the venom of 19 snakes. These snakes all belong to the elapid family of venomous snakes, and are members of the World Health Organization’s Category 1 and 2 snakes (the most medically relevant venomous snakes in the world). The cocktail provided complete protection—meaning 100% survival—for mice exposed to venom from 13 snake species, including several types of cobra and the black mamba, and offered partial protection against six others.

 

[Gomez Adams]

Sometimes, it's a special kind of crazy that saves the day.

I wonder if they have something similar for bees. (They and poison ivy are the only things on earth I'm allergic to.)

 

[Zeedox]

I'm gonna bet that a beekeeper would be able to answer that question.

 

[Gomez Adams]

So maybe in the end tgat kid that killed the United Healthcare CEO had a reason after all.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/15/unitedhealth-group-stock-doj-investigation-report.html

Shares of UnitedHealth Group
plunged more than 18% on Thursday following a report that the Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into the health-care giant over possible Medicare fraud.

The DOJ is focusing on the company’s Medicare Advantage business practices, but the exact nature of the potential criminal allegations is unclear, the Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.