Alzheimer's: Do Anti-Herpetics Reduce the Risk of Dementia and if so, Why?

It is always of critical importance to scrutinize biomedical studies for accuracy, especially those even suggesting benefits of novel applications for widely used medications.  An example is a 2018 retrospective Taiwanese study in which Tzeng claims that patients with HSV infections ‘may have’ a 2.56-fold increased risk of developing dementia. Furthermore, and more appropriate to the title of his paper (Anti-herpetic Medications and Reduced Risk of Dementia in Patients with Herpes Simplex Virus Infections-a Nationwide, Population-Based Cohort Study in Taiwan), Tzeng claimed that the usage of anti-herpetic medications was associated with a decreased risk of dementia. However imperfections in the study suggest the need for a more controlled study. For example, in the HSV-group merely 13.7% (1147 in 8362) did not receive anti-herpetic medications [1].