I’ve been hearing more and more about HHV6 herpes human virus 6 and its possible relationship between MS, chronic fatigue syndrome and AIDS/HIV. There’s a new book out, “The Virus Within” by Nicholas Regush, chief medical reporter for ABC News. I haven’t read it yet, but I have heard that it could play a significant role in medical research a la “And the Band Played On”.
Has anyone, SDMB biomed researchers or physicians in particular, read the book or have some insights on HHV6?
Is this just another HIV-is-bunk’em argument or is there something we should begin to investigate?
Hey, I’ve never done this before; is this something that our beloved and fearless leader Uncle Cecil would like to comment on?
Interestingly enough, I have read somewhere about some epidemiology research that found a link between HHV and multiple sclerosis. Apparently people who had the former have a much higher likelihood of acquiring the latter all things being equal. The connection to HIV/AIDS, however, is new news to me. The problem though is that you may be misinterpreting the data to mean “if I get herpes, I will surely get MS, HIV/AIDS, etc.” In truth, I personally believe it is more the case that if you lead the kind of lifestyle where you GET herpes, you may not be the biggest prude in the crowd and probably aren’t too selective when it comes to picking sexual partners. Hence your likelihood of getting other diseases. As an alternative to the ‘I bet that guys fucks anything that moves’ theory. It might simply be that the herpes virus sufficiently weakens the immune system to allow easier entry of whatever causes MS to get a foothold and wipe you out.
There is a lot of confusion here. This isn’t surprising because there are a lot of herpes viruses and little is known about some of them.
However: (1) The sexually transmitted virus that causes genital herpes is human herpesvirus type 2, not type 6, (2) herpes virus infections, such as HHV2 and HHV6 are often much worse in people whose immune systems are compromised as a result of HIV infection or some other process, and (3) it may turn out that one or more newly discovered herpes virus may turn out to be the cause of one or more known diseases of unknown cause but the jury won’t be in for some time.
The little I have dug up so far seems to point in the direction of HHV6 weakening the immune system which results in greater likelihood of infection from “opportunistic” diseases. WAG is that some scientists are saying that HHV6 weakens Tcells which allows HIV to run amok with little opposition. I’ll have to read the book [appropriately named the Virus Within?]which I hope arrives shortly.