ABSTRACT

Chronically ill patients with neurodegenerative, neurobehavioral and psychiatric diseases commonly have systemic and central nervous system bacterial and viral infections. In addition, other chronic illnesses where neurological manifestations are routinely found, such as fatiguing and autoimmune diseases, Lyme disease and Gulf War illnesses, also show systemic bacterial and viral infections that could be important in disease inception and progression or in increasing the number and severity of signs and symptoms. Evidence of Mycoplasma species, Chlamydia pneumoniae, Borrelia burgdorferi, human herpesvirus-1, -6 and -7 and other bacterial and viral infections revealed high infection rates in the above illnesses that were not found in controls. Although the specific roles of chronic infections in various diseases and their pathogeneses have not been carefully determined, the data suggest that chronic bacterial and/or viral infections are common features of progressive chronic diseases.


ABBREVIATIONS
Ab beta amyloid; AD Alzheimer's disease; ADHD attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder; ALS amyotrophic lateral sclerosis;
ASD autism spectrum disorders; EBV Epstein-Barr virus; CFS chronic fatigue syndrome; CFS/ME chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyopathy; CI confidence interval; CMV cytomegalovirus; CSF cerebrospinal fluid; CNS central nervous system; ELISA enzyme linked immunoabsorbant assay; GWI Gulf War illnesses; HHV human herpes virus; HSV herpes simplex virus; PCR polymerase chain reaction; PD Parkinson's disease

Free full text of part 1 in Html: http://www.bjmp.org/content/role-chronic-bacterial-and-viral-infections-neurodegenerative-neurobehavioral-psychiatric-au

Free full text pdf for part 1:
http://www.bjmp.org/files/dec2009/bjmp1209haier.pdf