How a history of eating human brains protected this tribe from brain disease

Washington post ^ | June 11 2015 | Sarah kaplin

[wgmalabama]

The sickness spread at funerals.

The Fore people, a once-isolated tribe in eastern Papua New Guinea, had a long-standing tradition of mortuary feasts — eating the dead from their own community at funerals. Men consumed the flesh of their deceased relatives, while women and children ate the brain. It was an expression of respect for the lost loved ones, but the practice wreaked havoc on the communities they left behind. That’s because a deadly molecule that lives in brains was spreading to the women who ate them, causing a horrible degenerative illness called “kuru” that at one point killed 2 percent of the population each year.

The practice was outlawed in the 1950s, and the kuru epidemic began to recede. But in its wake it left a curious and irreversible mark on the Fore, one that has implications far beyond Papua New Guinea: After years of eating brains, some Fore have developed a genetic resistance to the molecule that causes several fatal brain diseases, including kuru, mad cow disease and some cases of dementia.

[tumblindice]

And stay away from clowns' brains. They taste funny. My head hurts.

[RedHeeler]

That’s right. It’s a supposedly a committed protein.

[Gay State Conservative]

Every time I donate platelets at a nearby pediatric hospital they ask me if I've ever had Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.That's a disease that the people mentioned here contract from eating the brains or spinal columns of the dead.Saw a documentary on it many years ago.

[norwaypinesavage]

Creutzfeld Jacob Disease (CJD) is a "spontaneous" form of the disease that strikes about one in a million people per year. It's about 250 per year in the US. It is believed to take many decades to progress after exp0osure, and so it mostly strikes people after age 50. the "Mad Cow " variant of the disease, believed to be caused by eating beef from diseased cattle, struck much younger people, so it somehow progressed more rapidly in them. My brother in law died of CJD around the time that mad cow disease was happening in Europe.

These plus CWD and kuru, and others are believed to be caused by the same type of prion, a malformed protein, that somehow manages to replicate itself without the benefit of DNA. The lengthy incubation period would make the use of this as a weapon quite difficult.

[Islander7]

Is a Prion like 4 wheel drive Prius?

[Safetgiver]

The Fore people,.....had a long-standing tradition of mortuary feasts — eating the dead............Uhhh, who got the Fore skin?

[To Hell With Poverty]

Ping?

[dp0622]

I had to read up on your condition. I am sorry you had to go through that.

yes, sometimes I will spend three days trying to remember an actor’s name lol. i finally do.

Christian Slater took me a week :)

the sensory symptoms right now are much lousier than the cognitive issues.

i hope you are doing well.

[Axenolith]

Think of it in terms of a code, an organic “hack” per se. It needs an organism to copy, though the production of it seems to merely involve the folding of an existing protein.

I believe the means by which this has been/is kept in check naturally is through fire and the inherent tendency of creatures to not eat their own kind.

Factory feeding of brain and spinal materials to animals seems to have gotten it spread about. As I recall reading an article a while back on it, the CWD in the Elk herds of the Rockies likely originated from mink farms feeding sheep offal to minks, some of which escaped.

As it is persistent, probably the best way to eradicate it in a given ruminant area is repeated burning of the ground cover to destroy buildup in grasses from droppings over time.

[Axenolith]

That’s funny, if you “had” it, you’d be dead.

Transplants will pass it, and instruments used in them not flame or ultra high temperature sterilized.

[imardmd1]

i hope you are doing well.

Doing fine, but sometimes thinking of one of my 19 grandchildren's name, I come up with just a plain blank, or a name that sounds almost right, but isn't. That can be kind of scary.

About two days ago the name of my son's sixth child, a girl, was a gap. Then after really trying, I remembered it was short and stated with "L". I thought "Lucy" but I knew it was only close. Yesterday, I was reading a note from him, and it was "Lily."

On the other hand, I used to do the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle, with my own personal rule that it all has to come out of my head--no research, or dictionary, or other cheat. Usually I could either complete or get within three or four words, and often finish it.

I had let this habit die out before the craniotomy, but about a month ago, I thought this would be a good general test of memory, so I tried it again. You know what? I completely finished it in about two hours. That gave me a comforting feeling.

I think a lot of my problem is just that I'm getting too old.

Be encouraged that your activity on FR that I've noticed cuts across several topics and requires reasonable critical thinking ought to be a good sign to you. Keep it up!

[dp0622]

Nineteen? You must be from the heartland :)

I miss the big numbers.

my grandmother had 10 kids, my mother had five and brother and sisters have a couple each.

It only took two generations from Sicily to do that. what a shame.

Great news on the puzzle :)

Yea, like I said, the sensory symptoms are much worse than the cognitive.

19. You have quite a legacy. That’s nice

[mosesdapoet]

brains protected this tribe from brain disease, wgmalabama wrote:
Except some prions can be introduced to the soil and taken into plants. I doubt the deer in the northern Midwest are eating each other’s brains but yet it’s spreading into others states

UW found that clay in certain areas of Wisconsin seemed to foster CWD in White Tail deer.

[SunkenCiv]

There’s another article that sez the opposite. Thanks THWP.