Antiherpetic Medications May Reduce Risk for Dementia

Antiherpetic medications, either overall or individual antivirals, were associated with decreased risk of developing dementia.Individuals with herpes simplex virus (HSV) infections may have a 2.56-fold increased risk for dementia and the use of antiherpetic medications was associated with a decrease in dementia risk, according to research published in Neurotherapeutics.1A retrospective cohort study using Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Database identified 8362 patients with new HSV infections and 25,086 randomly selected sex- and age-matched controls without HSV.The use of claims data allowed patients with dementia to be identified but no data on severity or stage were available, nor were data on antiherpetic treatment durations.There were no imaging or other laboratory data available, so investigators relied on physician diagnosis.
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