The Bacteria Doctors Aren’t Testing For — Lyme, Asthma & Dementia with Founding Director of the Pathobiome Research Center Nikki Schultek
This week on the Lyme Time Podcast: Nikki Schultek — Lyme patient turned researcher and founding director of the Pathobiome Research Center at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine — joins Ali to unpack the hidden infections driving chronic and neurodegenerative disease.
- Her own journey started in 2015 with an unexplained swollen joint and “air hunger” — later traced to Babesia, misdiagnosed for a year despite 12+ doctors, and only fully treated for it this past December.
- She founded Intracell Research Group in 2017, then co-founded the Alzheimer’s Pathobiome Initiative — a global consortium studying how infections drive Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS, PANDAS/PANS, and epilepsy.
- Big overlooked link: Chlamydia pneumoniae, a common respiratory bacterium, hides inside immune cells like a “Trojan horse,” can cross into the brain, and has been tied to asthma, interstitial cystitis, and neurocognitive decline. Her team’s ITREAT-PC trial is testing antibiotics as an asthma treatment nationwide.
- On Lyme and dementia: her team’s 2023 study found 86 cases of infectious dementia — including Borrelia — where treating the infection improved or reversed memory scores. Historical parallel: untreated syphilis (also a spirochete) caused dementia before antibiotics existed.
Tune in to Lyme Time today! Links below
📍 Learn more or explore research collaboration at alzpi.org.
In good health,
