Some Cases of Dementia Can Be Cured, Researchers Say, Because They’re Caused by Fungus and Bacteria in Brain

Image by Getty / Futurism

A new research consortium has found not only that brain fungi or bacteria can cause some dementia cases, but also that for some patients, the damage can even be reversed.

One of the main drivers behind this discovery, pharmaceutical rep-turned-researcher Nikki Schultek told the Guardian that she also suffered from dementia caused by fungi.

Nearly a decade ago, the North Carolina-based business school graduate suddenly developed debilitating cognitive symptoms. In her early 30s at the time, Schultek was terrified she wouldn’t live long enough to see her children, then just three and five years old, grow up.

After being tested for multiple sclerosis, the young mother and her doctors eventually figured out what was going on: she had concurring chronic infections from the Lyme disease-causing bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi — and one of them had reached her brain.

Antibiotics calmed the infection, but because it’s hard to eradicate infections once they reach the brain, Schulek decided to start her own research group — the Alzheimer’s Pathobiome Initiative — to study cases like hers where bacterial or fungal infections seem to be linked to dementia.

Unlike Schultek, who got a marketing degree from Villanova, the consortium’s other members hold medical degrees from universities like Cambridge and Heidelberg, and work at institutions like Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Oxford’s Institute of Population Ageing.

In a paper published in the journal Alzheimer’s and Dementia last year, the improbable disease researcher and her erudite colleagues outlined several cases where people with dementia symptoms were found to have similar infections in their brains. When they took antiviral or antifungal meds, those symptoms abated.

According to University of Edinburgh molecular biologist and paper coauthor Richard Lathe, many of the people whose cases the consortium studied essentially discovered the link by accident when their dementia symptoms “went away” after being treated with antivirals or antifungals.

Because the hypothesis is so new, it’s impossible to know yet what percentage of dementia and Alzheimer’s patients may be experiencing those symptoms due to bacterial or fungal infections.

“We know there are some,” Lathe continued. “We know it’s unlikely to be 100 percent, but our guess is that probably half or more could potentially be treated.”

If that bold theory turns out to be true, it could mean that many cases of dementia are reversible with medication — which could utterly change the game when it comes to these debilitating cognitive disorders.

More on dementia: Two New Dementia Risk Factors Have Been Uncovered — And You Can Actually Do Something About Them