[estearum]

Well obviously the answer here is “we don’t know.” But this is not the only piece of evidence pointing toward a viral theory of Alzheimer’s. There’s also higher prevalence of viral DNA in AD patients’ brains, especially near the amyloid plaques, people with severe HSV infections have much higher rates of AD, we know of many viruses that cause similar neurological issues as AD, VZV (chicken pox) can cause proliferation of AD-linked proteins, and we see evidence that antiretrovirals might have some preventative power against AD.

It’s certainly not conclusive, but this is not nearly as crazy a hypothesis as people (for some reason) reflexively assume it to be.