Fungal Infections in the Brain Associated with Alzheimer's Disease

[Gert van der Hoek]

Different Brain Regions are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer?s Disease


Abstract

The possibility that Alzheimer?s disease (AD) has a microbial aetiology has been proposed by several researchers. Here, we provide evidence that tissue from the central nervous system (CNS) of AD patients contain fungal cells and hyphae.

Fungal material can be detected both intra- and extracellularly using specific antibodies against several fungi. Different brain regions including external frontal cortex, cerebellar hemisphere, entorhinal cortex/hippocampus and choroid plexus contain fungal material, which is absent in brain tissue from control individuals.

Analysis of brain sections from ten additional AD patients reveals that all are infected with fungi. Fungal infection is also observed in blood vessels, which may explain the vascular pathology frequently detected in AD patients. Sequencing of fungal DNA extracted from frozen CNS samples identifies several fungal species.

Collectively, our findings provide compelling evidence for the existence of fungal infection in the CNS from AD patients, but not in control individuals.

fungal structures can be observed also in the vascular system of AD patients.

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[Gert van der Hoek]

Possible link with diabetes: yeast is a fungus and needs a supply of energy for its living and growth. Sugar supplies this energy. (Your body also gets much of its energy from sugar and other carbohydrates.) Yeast can use oxygen to release the energy from sugar (like you can) in the process called "respiration". So, the more sugar there is, the more active the yeast will be and the faster its growth (up to a certain point).

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