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A Lack of Correlation between the Incidence of Lyme Disease and Deaths due to Alzheimer's Disease

Article type: Short Communication

Authors: O'Day, Danton H.a; b; * | Catalano, Andrewc

Affiliations: [a] Department of Biology, University of Toronto at Mississauga, Mississauga, ON, Canada | [b] Department of Cell and Systems Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada | [c] Department of Chemistry, City College of New York, New York, NY, USA

Correspondence: [*] Correspondence to: Danton H. O'Day, Department of Biology, University of Toronto at Mississauga, 3359 Mississauga rd. N., Mississauga, ON, L5L 1C6, Canada. E-mail: danton.oday@utoronto.ca.

Keywords: Alzheimer's disease, Borrelia burgdorferi, disease incidence, lyme disease

DOI: 10.3233/JAD-140552

Journal: Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 115-118, 2014

Accepted 25 March 2014
|
Published: 11 August 2014
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Abstract

Reports that Lyme disease (LD) causes Alzheimer's disease (AD) have appeared in academic journals and online. If the biological agent Borrelia burgdorferi that causes LD also causes AD, then areas with the highest levels of LD should have significantly higher numbers of deaths due to AD compared to low LD areas. Here we show there is no statistically significant correlation between the incidence of LD and deaths due to AD in the US. Furthermore, the 13 states with the highest deaths due to AD were statistically different (p < 0.0001) from those with high LD incidence.

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