ONE CAUSE OF ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE AND OTHER NEUROLOGICAL DISEASES - ALS, MOTOR NEURONE, MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS, PARKINSON'S

Dr Alan MacDonald has been posting some excellent and informative posts on Lymenet Europe of late


Many patients with Chronic lyme Disease will remember Dr MacDonald from scenes in Under our skin As you can see in the above video Borrelia has not just been found in patients with Alzheimer's but also patients with other Neurological Diseases - ALS, Motor Neurone, Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson's.


According to Under Our Skin news clip Dr MacDonald became ill with an Alzheimer's like illness and had to retire. He says on the Lymenet forum that he is doing well providing he is on medication, clearly reading his posts there is not a lot wrong with his cognitive abilities and I was delighted to read the following.


'My research was interrupted by several years when I was ill. I have now returned to limited Alzheimer's disease Research as an Affiliated Researcher at the Harvard University McLean Brain Bank.'


Taken from the comment below:-


I am glad that you asked:
Dr Judith Miklossy has always worked independently commencing her studies on Neuroborreliosis and Alzheimer's Disease in 1993 with her initial publication in Neuroreport.
She is presentlythe President of a Foundation which is devoted to Alzheimer's research and connections
to neuroborreliosis. She operates her own website, which contains her credentials and her biblography.


I have always worrked independently commencing my Studies of Alzheimer's disease and connections
between Neuroborreliosis and Alzheimer's disease in 1986 with my publication in the Journal of the American Medical Association "Borrelia inthe Brains of patiens dying with Dementia", followed by the 1987
article "Concurrent Neocortical Borreliosis and Alzheimer's Disease" published in Human Pathology,
and then"Concurrent Neocortical borreliosis and Alzheimer's Disease - Description of a spirochetal cyst form", in 1988 in the Annalsof the New York Academy of Sciences.


Although Dr Miklossy and I have a close friendship, we beleive that maintaining independent
research Laboratories ( In New York and in Switzerland) is the ideal pathway to establish 
a bibliographic base of independently produced papers to support th concept of an infectious
pathway to future development of some ( but not all) cases of Alzheimer's Disease.


I have never been a reviewer nor referee for the peer review of any of Judith's papers.
Judith has never been a reviewer or referee for the peer review of any of my papers.


My Last published works were reviewed and accepted for presentation at the Alzheimer's Disease
and Related Disorders International conference in 2006 Madrid Spain. My research was interrupted by
several years when I was ill. I have now returned to limited Alzheimer's disease Research as an Affiliated
Researcher at the Harvard University McLean Brain Bank.


What commonalities have been gleaned by two independent investigators working on the Chronic
Neuroborreliosis /Alzheimer's disease connection:
1. Identification of Borrelia burgdorferi spirochetes in Autopsy Alzheimer's brain tissue by
Silver staining ( Miklossy+ MacDonald+)
2. Culture of Autopsy Alzheimer's Brain tissue to yield growth of Borrelia burgdorferi spirochetes
(Miklossy + MacDonald +)
3. Idenification of argyrophilic plaques in Autopsy General Paresis brain tissue 
which are exactly the same size, density and distribution as argyrophilic plaques in
Alzheimer's disease autopsy tissue ( Miklossy + MacDonald +)
4. Identification of bacterial peptidoglycan staining in Alzheimer's plaques
(Miklossy + MacDonald -not studied)
5. Indentification of Intracellular borrelia burgdorferi spirochetes within diseases neurons
inautopsy Alzheimer's Brain tissue ( Miklosssy + macDonald+)
6. Identification of the role of the granular form of borrelia burgdorferi as a contributor to
the classical finding of "granuolo-vacuolar" degeneration of Neurons in Alzheimer's disease
(Miklossy +( immunohistochemistry) MacDonald + (In Situ DNA hybridization))
7. The use of highly specific molecular beacons to pick up evidence of Borrelia burgdorferi DNA
sequences in Alzheimer's disease Plaques ( MacDoanld +)
8. The use of PCR performed on total Alzheimer's frozen brain tissue from the Harvard Brain Bank
to amplify borrelia specific DNA sequences from Orf BB0147 and to confirm the DNA structure
by DNA sequence analysis of PCR amplified products. (MacDonald +)


We seek to analyze Cerebrospinal fluid from Alzheimer's Disease patients for the following:
a. Borrelia burgdorferi Specific DNA
b. Whole proteome analysis using Dr Steven Schutzer's MASS spectroscopy analysis
protocol which was published in PlosONE. Dr Schutzer's program is able to
reliably distinguish CSF specimens from Chronic Lyme Disease patients
and to separate such patients from those with Chronic Fatique (notlyme),
Based on State of the art Proteome analysis via Mass Spectrographic Analysis.
Respectfully,
Alan B.MacDonald MD
PS: Ifyou have a moment,please read Dr Hideyo Noguchi and J E.Moore's paper in the Journal of Experimental Medicine from their lab at the Rockefeller Research Institute in New York City
(Link: http://jem.rupress.org/content/17/2/232.full.pdf+html ) and you will read about the "politics of Paresis" which prompted heated debates between Noguchi and Professor Max Nonne.


Lymenet Europe forum here


Dr Alan Macdonald was the first person to find Borrelia spirochetes in the brains of patients who had diesd from Alzheimer's I have posted before about him and his work here 





Dr MacDonald is the first person I have heard of diagnosed with an Alzheimer's type illness retired from work who has sufficiently recovered to return to work, albeit limited and for that work - to be research into Alzheimer's Disease this most important research area.