Association between Toxoplasma gondii seropositivity and Alzheimer’s disease: a case-control study
Maryam Aldaghi, Ali Alizadeh Khatir, Mahdi Sepidarkish, Delaram Arjmandi, Faribourz Mousavi, Saeed Aghapour, Masomeh Bayani, Ali Rostami · 2026
Read Association between Toxoplasma gondii seropositivity and Alzheimer’s disease: a case-control study by Maryam Aldaghi, Ali Alizadeh Khatir, Mahdi Sepidarkish, Delaram Arjmandi, Faribourz Mousavi, Saeed Aghapour, Masomeh Bayani, Ali Rostami (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13468854.txt.
Description
Aldaghi and a team in Iran compared blood antibodies in 2026 between Alzheimer's patients and healthy peers, testing the parasite Toxoplasma gondii. The parasite infects much of humanity and settles in the brain for life. Some earlier work blamed it for raising dementia risk. The study enrolled 90 newly diagnosed patients and 91 controls at a hospital in Babol. Antibody tests showed who carried the parasite. Mental state exams graded disease severity.
The result ran against the blame story: about 78 percent of patients carried the parasite, against 89 percent of controls. Carriers had roughly a third the odds of Alzheimer's after adjustment, and carriage linked to lower odds of severe disease. The authors are careful: a snapshot study cannot prove the parasite protects anyone. Confounders or reverse causation could explain the gap. Still, the finding joins a mixed literature and argues for prospective studies that track infection before dementia begins.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Maryam Aldaghi, Ali Alizadeh Khatir, Mahdi Sepidarkish, Delaram Arjmandi, Faribourz Mousavi, Saeed Aghapour, Masomeh Bayani, Ali Rostami |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 27 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |