Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure

> The authors and other scientists stress that the research is based on a small number of people and is related to medical practices that are no longer used.

Also that there is zero-reason to believe in any person-to-person spread:

> The study does not suggest that forms of dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease can be contagious.

Lastly, a fun vocabulary word [not in that article]: "Iatrogenic" - An illness caused by medical examination or treatment.

Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure

#4

Post by rajup » Mon, Jan 29, 2024, 10:04 PM UTC

My understanding was the beta-amyloid hypothesis itself is under some amount of scrutiny and may not truly explain Alzheimer's. Wonder if this finding adds more evidence for the amyloid hypothesis.

Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure

#5

Post by Mistletoe » Mon, Jan 29, 2024, 10:06 PM UTC

rajup wrote: post #4

My understanding was the beta-amyloid hypothesis itself is under some amount of scrutiny and may not truly explain Alzheimer's. Wonder if this finding adds more evidence for the amyloid hypothesis.

I thought CJD was caused by a prion. Was it in the growth hormone prep from the cadavers?

Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure

#6

Post by m-i-l » Mon, Jan 29, 2024, 10:06 PM UTC

Slightly more clickbaity title than the BBC's "Medicine stopped in 1980s linked to rare Alzheimer's cases"[0] which also says "The findings do not mean Alzheimer's is infectious - you cannot catch it from contact with people who have it... The researchers say all of the people in their study had been treated as a child with cadaver-derived human growth hormone, or c-hGH, that was contaminated with brain proteins that are seen in Alzheimer's disease... used to treat at least 1,848 people in the UK between 1959 and 1985".

[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-68126907

Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure

#7

Post by m3kw9 » Mon, Jan 29, 2024, 10:10 PM UTC

rajup wrote: post #4

My understanding was the beta-amyloid hypothesis itself is under some amount of scrutiny and may not truly explain Alzheimer's. Wonder if this finding adds more evidence for the amyloid hypothesis.

Not sure why scientists has to pin point a single cause where as you have different vectors that can cause the same disease is also plausible

Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure

#8

Post by bjourne » Mon, Jan 29, 2024, 10:10 PM UTC

Afaict, this is not an entirely new finding. For example, this page (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07771-6) references a 2018 article about the issue of Alzheimer's being transmitted (or rather "seeded") through growth hormone extracted from cadavers. Perhaps the new article provides additional evidence or perhaps the other article only suspected a casual link and this one proves that there is one. I haven't read it thoroughly.

What I find interesting and scary is the "seeding" part. The small amount of growth hormone injected to the children cannot itself have caused Alzheimer's. But it must have caused some rewiring of the brain to make it accumulate more plaque which over a period of many decades slowly decreased their brain performance. If this effect is synthesizeable then one can easily imagine many countries using it to develop terrifying biological weapons.

Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure

#9

Post by treyd » Mon, Jan 29, 2024, 10:11 PM UTC

Mistletoe wrote: post #5

rajup wrote: post #4

My understanding was the beta-amyloid hypothesis itself is under some amount of scrutiny and may not truly explain Alzheimer's. Wonder if this finding adds more evidence for the amyloid hypothesis.

I thought CJD was caused by a prion. Was it in the growth hormone prep from the cadavers?

Yeah that's correct. The article mentions a few cases of people who died from transmitted CJD that may have also received some beta amyloid or tau proteins that could have catalyzed development into Alzheimer's if only they didn't die from CJD, which seems to develop more quickly through that route. If Alzheimer's is truly is some kind of prion-related disease, which the research is suggesting.

Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure

#10

Post by aurizon » Mon, Jan 29, 2024, 10:21 PM UTC

New prion diseases are being found in other animals and might evolve to enter humans. There is a deer version being watched - not yet found in people, AFAWK? https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cwd/index.html

There have been many cases of assorted Human Papilloma viruses (HPV) transmitted by kissing as well as assorted variances of oral sex. Recent vaccines are very effective.https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/hpv/public/index.html