Posted on 09/16/2015 1:14:29 AM PDT by LibWhacker
Brain plaques may have been seeded by contaminated hormone extracts from cadavers.
Only a decade ago, the idea that Alzheimer’s disease might be transmissible between people would have been laughed off the stage. But scientists have since shown that tissues can transmit symptoms of the disease between animals — and new results imply that humans, at least in one unusual circumstance, may not be an exception.
The findings, published in this issue of Nature, emerged during autopsy studies of the brains of eight people who had died of the rare but deadly Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD; Z. Jaunmuktane et al. Nature 525, 247–250; 2015). They contracted it decades after treatment with contaminated batches of growth hormone that had been extracted from the pituitary glands of human cadavers. Six of the brains, in addition to the damage caused by CJD, harboured the tell-tale amyloid pathology that is associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
“This is the first evidence of real-world transmission of amyloid pathology,” says molecular neuroscientist John Hardy of University College London (UCL). “It is potentially concerning.”
If confirmed, the findings raise the spectre that tens of thousands of other people treated with the human growth-hormone (hGH) extracts might be at risk of Alzheimer’s. And although there is no suggestion that Alzheimer’s could be contracted through normal contact with patients, some scientists worry that the findings may have broader implications: that Alzheimer’s could be passed on by other routes through which CJD can be transmitted, such as blood transfusions or contaminated surgical instruments.
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
I don’t think they get hGH from human cadavers anymore since it can be made with recombinant technology. But perhaps there are still some former patients at risk.
Yes.
Further this is extremely doubtful.
I have noticed over the decades that British are obsessed with mad cow disease and put an inordinate level of concern and fear on it. This is along those same lines.
on a cold day I like to exhale as much as I can and when I see my breath, I try to catch it, with my bare hands...
Alzheimers caregivers in a study of 1200 people were found to be 600% more likely to “acquire” the ailment. Miss-folded prions are found in all body fluids and tissues of patients. These are known facts dating ten years ago. It has just now leaked out. What else are we not being told?
I know of three married couples where both parties were afflicted with Alzheimer’s.
There is something to this, but I am not sure what.
While CJD has been declared to be a prion disease, no prion has in fact been identified, unlike bovine spongiform encephalopathy. CJD does follow the pattern of BSE, and there is some evidence of transmissibility, but no specific agent has been IDed.
There is little to no evidence that Alzheimers is a prion disease. The build up of amyloid appears to be an auto-biochemical problem, not one triggered by an outside agent. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised that the damaged caused by CJD triggered the development of neurofibrilary tangles and plaques that cause Alzheimers.
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