Alzheimer's Disease

Infectious Theory Draws Fresh Interest

- Bret Stetka

Dr Leslie Norins is willing to hand over $1 million ofhis own money to anyone who can clarify something: is Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia worldwide, caused by a germ? By "germ" he means microbes like bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites. In other words, Norins, a physician turned publisher, wants to know if Alzheimer's is infectious.

It's an idea that just a few years ago would've seemed to many an easy way to drain your research budget on bunk science. Money has poured into Alzheimer's research for years, but until very recently not much of it went toward investigating infection in causing dementia.

But this "germ theory" of Alzheimer's, as Norins calls it, has been fermenting in the literature for decades. Even early 20th century Czech physician Oskar Fischer—who, along with his German contemporary Dr Alois Alzheimer, was integral in first describing the condition—noted a possible connection between the newly identified dementia and tuberculosis.

If the germ theory gets traction, even in some Alzheimer's patients, it could trigger a seismic shift in how doctors understand and treat the disease.

Norins received his medical degree from Duke in the early 1960s, and after a stint at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention he fell into a lucrative career in medical publishing. He eventually settled in an aged community in Naples, Florida, where he took an interest in dementia and began reading up on the condition.

After scouring the medical literature he noticed a pattern. "It appeared that many of the reported characteristics of Alzheimer's disease were compatible with an infectious process," Norins tells NPR. "I thought for sure this must have already been investigated, because millions and millions of dollars1 have been spent on Alzheimer's research."