The study was carried out by University College London and published via Natural medicinereveals first cases of transmission of Alzheimer’s disease.
In the middle of the last century, there was a treatment whose purpose was to apply growth hormone to people of short stature. Moreover, it was extracted from the brain tissue of corpses.
In 1985, the method was completely banned. Cause? The hormone c-hGH has been found to be contaminated and cause some patients to develop Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which in turn can lead to dementia.
Now, an experiment from the above-mentioned academic institution showed that five people in the United Kingdom who received the described growth hormone for several years before its ban suffered from transmission of the virus. amyloid beta protein, which when accumulated forms neuritic plaques, which are precursors to Alzheimer’s disease. Thus, these are the first cases of accidental infection with this disease.
However, it is important to note that The above does not mean that Alzheimer’s disease can spread or spread in the same way as other more common diseases.. In fact, University College made it clear that this strange event was due to medical procedures that no longer worked.
“This study shows that in very rare cases, Alzheimer’s disease can be transmitted between people through growth hormone from deceased donors. It should be emphasized that today this treatment is no longer used and has been replaced by synthetic growth hormone. “It’s also important to note that this is the only documented case of transmission of Alzheimer’s disease between people,” said John Collinge, study leader and director of the Prion Disease Institute at University College London.
Key milestone in continued study Alzheimer’s disease
So now we know that Alzheimer’s disease can certainly be transmitted, but very specific conditions must be met.. The same researchers cite the example of prion diseases, which are considered rare because only about 1 to 1.5 cases are documented per million inhabitants per year. In the case of transmission of Alzheimer’s disease, this figure may be even lower, since responsible medical treatment ceased to exist almost 4 decades ago.
In an interview with A country, neurologist Pascual Sánchez Juan shared the idea that Alzheimer’s disease is not normally contagious. “Alzheimer’s disease is not contagious. Working with patients at home or in nursing homes does not involve any risk. If we can recognize the specific strain, we can better target treatment for each patient, but we are not yet able to link this diversity of beta-amyloid plaques to the different clinical subtypes of Alzheimer’s disease,” he commented.
Despite the above, it is still interesting to learn more about these reasons. the impact it may have on continued research into treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.
“It appears that what happens in Alzheimer’s disease is in many ways very similar to what happens with prion diseases such as CJD. [Enfermedad de Creutzfeldt-Jakob]. “This has several implications for therapeutic approaches to Alzheimer’s disease,” Collinge added.
Of course, with this study we can also conclude that poorly performed brain surgery may be a reason for the transmission of Alzheimer’s disease, right? Theoretically it is possible, yes. For this reason, Collinge calls for the study to be watershed “to consider measures to prevent accidental transmission of infection during other medical and surgical procedures.”
Source: Hiper Textual
