28 votes

Scientists document first-ever transmitted Alzheimer’s cases, tied to no-longer-used medical procedure

Posted by skybrian
Tags: medicine, alzheimers, diseases.transmissible, cadavers.human, hormones.growth, treatments, proteins, creutzfeldt jakob disease, iatrogenic, scientists, brains, diseases.neurodegenerative, author.andrew joseph, source.statnews, paywall
https://www.statnews.com/2024/01/29/first-transmitted-alzheimers-disease-cases-growth-hormone-cadavers/

Link information

This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.

Authors
Andrew Joseph
Published
Jan 29 2024
Word count
1396 words

15 comments

  1. [5]
    fraughtGYRE
    Link
    This may represent a real problem for the care of people with Alzheimers. If the amyloid beta proteins are truly transmissible in a prion-like fashion it means that all equipment that comes into...

    This may represent a real problem for the care of people with Alzheimers. If the amyloid beta proteins are truly transmissible in a prion-like fashion it means that all equipment that comes into contact with the central nervous system must be viewed as contaminated and treated with the same caution used for equipment exposed to prions. All the medical devices used in procedures like brain surgeries, lumbar punctures, etc. will have to undergo the same handling and disposal procedures. This often involves outright destruction of the material as prions are simply too resistant to normal sterilization methods.

    Very concerning, more investigation will have to be done.

    23 votes
    1. [2]
      arch
      Link Parent
      Wouldn't it be fairly apparent if there were a link like this? I would expect for us to see higher rates of Alzheimers in certain cohorts, for instance women who undergo a C-section and receive...

      Wouldn't it be fairly apparent if there were a link like this? I would expect for us to see higher rates of Alzheimers in certain cohorts, for instance women who undergo a C-section and receive spinal anesthesia. This article seems to only look at a very specific procedure which injected growth hormone from cadaver brains which was "prepared in a particular way — a method that doesn’t eliminate protein bits".

      5 votes
      1. fraughtGYRE
        Link Parent
        It's very hard to say if we would have noticed it before now. Neurosurgery is not a very common procedure, especially for young people, and the incubation times of transmissible spongiform...

        It's very hard to say if we would have noticed it before now. Neurosurgery is not a very common procedure, especially for young people, and the incubation times of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies can be extremely long. One documented case of kuru, a disease peculiar to Papua New Guinea, is suspected to have had an incubation time of 30 years, IIRC. So it is possible that transmissions were occurring, but not detected because by the time symptoms appeared the patients were of an appropriate age to be developing the disease naturally. Meanwhile, younger people exposed might have been at low enough numbers to be documented as the rare early-onset form of Alzheimers without arousing too much suspicion. Some procedures also might carry very low risk of transmission. In your example, women of childbearing age are extremely unlikely to have Alzheimers, so equipment used for procedures in that group probably carries a low risk.

        As far as I know there has not been any large-scale systematic study into a link between AD and prior neurological procedures. I'll spend some time looking for one though, I could be wrong.

        2 votes
    2. [2]
      archevel
      Link Parent
      Not at all familliar with the subject but I vaguely recall reading fairly recently about fraudulent research related to Alzheimers. It might have been related to this:...

      Not at all familliar with the subject but I vaguely recall reading fairly recently about fraudulent research related to Alzheimers. It might have been related to this:

      https://www.science.org/content/article/potential-fabrication-research-images-threatens-key-theory-alzheimers-disease

      If this research is based on the above it could be just downright wrong.

      2 votes
      1. fraughtGYRE
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        Having worked in the field, I can say that most experts view the amyloid-beta hypothesis as still quite strong, with lots of other data supporting it. i can't say if they're correct, by that is...

        Having worked in the field, I can say that most experts view the amyloid-beta hypothesis as still quite strong, with lots of other data supporting it. i can't say if they're correct, by that is the prevailing sentiment. The fabrication here, while extremely problematic, is not the sole foundation of the hypothesis. This data primarily hinges on a single form of the A-beta oligomer while more recent data shows that a wide variety of oligomers are present in diseased brains, and that their interaction may be more important than individual effects. I still have lots to learn here though, so please take my opinions with a grain of salt.

        5 votes
  2. skybrian
    Link
    Accidentally transferring bits of protein from one person's brain to another is bad. Fortunately they don't do that anymore. But the terrible consequences are scientifically interesting: ... ... ...

    Accidentally transferring bits of protein from one person's brain to another is bad. Fortunately they don't do that anymore. But the terrible consequences are scientifically interesting:

    As the scientific team treating the patients reported Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, the hormone transplant seeded the beta-amyloid protein that’s a hallmark of Alzheimer’s in some recipients’ brains, which, decades later, propagated into disease-causing plaques. They are the first known cases of transmitted Alzheimer’s disease, likely a scientific anomaly yet a finding that adds another wrinkle to ongoing arguments about what truly causes Alzheimer’s.

    ...

    Other outside scientists agreed that they found the findings legitimate, in particular because only people who had received cadaveric growth hormone prepared in a particular way — a method that doesn’t eliminate protein bits — went on to develop dementia.

    ...

    The paper’s authors, who run a special prion disease research and treatment center in London, describe just five Alzheimer’s patients out of the more than 1,800 people who were known to have received cadaveric growth hormone in the U.K. from 1959 to 1985. Still, the researchers said the findings were a reminder of the continuing importance of practices like sterilizing neurosurgical instruments, which, in theory, could transfer prions if not properly cleaned between patients.

    ...

    Outside researchers said they were also left scratching their heads about some of the findings. They said there was limited information, with findings reported from just a few patients, and data like genetic sequencing and autopsy results available from just a sample of them.

    They noted, however, that there didn’t seem to be much inflammation in the patients’ brains, another hallmark of Alzheimer’s that can be induced by amyloid. They also wondered why there was so little presence of another protein called tau in the people’s brains despite their cognitive losses, even though tau levels often correlate to cognitive decline. Some researchers speculated that the patients may have had some other genetic mutation that could increase their risk of Alzheimer’s. Two of the patients had intellectual disabilities, another risk factor.

    “Can the pathology be transmitted? Yes, it can, and that’s important conceptually,” Wolozin said. “The question is, what’s driving disease? There are many weird things about these rare cases. What’s unclear from the images is, why would they develop such severe dementia that quickly?”

    13 votes
  4. Minori
    Link
    This is absolutely bizarre and incredibly interesting. Prions are somewhat difficult to study and are more akin to cancer or viruses than bacteria or fungus. Prions technically aren't alive, yet...

    This is absolutely bizarre and incredibly interesting. Prions are somewhat difficult to study and are more akin to cancer or viruses than bacteria or fungus. Prions technically aren't alive, yet they replicate and are incredibly pernicious.

    5 votes
  5. [7]
    RoyalHenOil
    Link
    This reminds me of an older article (published 2004) that I encountered years ago about the link between Alzheimer's, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, and BSE (a prion disease found in cattle, also...

    This reminds me of an older article (published 2004) that I encountered years ago about the link between Alzheimer's, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, and BSE (a prion disease found in cattle, also known as mad cow disease):

    The CDC reported last May of an outbreak of CJD [Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease] linked to the consumption of meat contaminated "with the agent causing" bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in a New Jersey racetrack between the time frame 1995-2004. In the opinion of experts, ample justification exists for considering a similar pathogenesis for Alzheimer's, Creutzfeldt-Jakob and the other spongiform encephalopathies such as Mad Cow disease. In fact, Creutzfeldt-Jakob and Alzheimer's often coexist and at this point are thought to differ merely by time-dependent physical changes. A recent study links up to 13% of all "Alzheimer's" victims as really having Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. ... Dairy products aside, when past and present meat consumption are factored in, there is three times the risk of developing Alzheimer's in meat eaters as opposed to vegetarians.

    4 votes
    1. [6]
      R3qn65
      Link Parent
      You may be aware, but I wanted to highlight it in case you're not. That article was published in Medical Hypotheses, a journal which is not peer-reviewed and which exists specifically to showcase...
      • Exemplary

      You may be aware, but I wanted to highlight it in case you're not. That article was published in Medical Hypotheses, a journal which is not peer-reviewed and which exists specifically to showcase unconventional ideas. The author's claim that 13% of all Alzheimer's victims actually have CJD is not substantiated by references. More broadly, the author believes that a variety of pathologies generally considered distinct (Alzheimer's, cancer, autism, and COVID) are all linked to exposure to tuberculosis bacteria.

      That, in and of itself, doesn't mean that the author is wrong, but I think it is important to recognize that his views are in stark contrast to the prevailing thought.

      38 votes
      2. vektor
        Link Parent
        Publications that should exist, but should exist far away from the public eye.

        That article was published in Medical Hypotheses, a journal which is not peer-reviewed and which exists specifically to showcase unconventional ideas.

        Publications that should exist, but should exist far away from the public eye.

        5 votes
      3. [3]
        oniony
        Link Parent
        They think covid is linked to TB?

        They think covid is linked to TB?

        4 votes
        1. sparksbet
          Link Parent
          of those options, at least both Covid and TB can cause a cough... the others are even more unhinged...

          of those options, at least both Covid and TB can cause a cough... the others are even more unhinged...

          5 votes
        2. R3qn65
          Link Parent
          I didn't want to be unnecessarily unkind, but the author thinks that nearly everything is caused by tuberculerotic mycobacteria. In addition to the four things I mentioned, the author has also...

          I didn't want to be unnecessarily unkind, but the author thinks that nearly everything is caused by tuberculerotic mycobacteria. In addition to the four things I mentioned, the author has also suggested that AIDS, diabetes, and Ebola are actually caused by mycobacteria. I'm sure there are others.

          5 votes