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

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

#91

Post by RajT88 »

eigenvalue wrote: post #46
axus wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mom developed an allergy to eggs after a blood transfusion. She long regretted never being able to eat another chocolate eclair.

That’s nuts. Seems like researchers should look really closely at weird side effects of blood transfusions since these are effectively “natural experiments” that would be impossible or unethical to run normally.

Well, the boffins figured out somehow that if you get a blood transfusion from an Opossum you become immune to all snake venom for a while.

(Seems wikipedia removed this factoid now... and other sources state "most" snake venom)

I assume they tested on animals, not humans.

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

#93

Post by coffeebeqn »

q1w2 wrote: post #41
eigenvalue wrote: post #35

I wonder what other stuff is being unwittingly transferred during standard blood transfusions. I've seen some interesting research about the "signalling" power of blood from both older and younger donors, with the "young blood" causing a slow down of senescence in cells, and the "old blood" causing a speed-up in senescence. Any time you take biological material out of other human beings and put them in a different bo…

Not only blood transfusions, but ligament/tendon transplants from cadavers are extremely common for people who tear their ACL. It would be a disaster if this type of surgery also transmitted some prior/protein misfolding disease decades later. Millions would be impacted. The practice stared in the 1980s, but really only became popular in the early 2000s with the boom in arthroscopic surgery standardization. Hopefully…

Could they test the donor first for these proteins or whatever is causing it?

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

#95

Post by coffeebeqn »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #69
jokoon wrote: post #52

weird that the bulk of patients are in france and UK, does that indicate diet?

All the researchers are all UK based, and the UK became verrrry interested in prion diseases due to a very bad habit UK agriculture had gotten into of incorporating culled animals (other cattle, which furthered the spread, but the ultimate cause was likely grinding up sheep infected with scrapies, an ovine spongiform encephalopathy) supplementary cattle feed for animals later eaten by humans which led to the CJD outb…

Cows are also fed “sewage solids” from water treatment plants. Now that I think about it maybe I should stop eating / drinking cow products

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

#96

Post by fastball »

kccqzy wrote: post #73
eigenvalue wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s nuts. Seems like researchers should look really closely at weird side effects of blood transfusions since these are effectively “natural experiments” that would be impossible or unethical to run normally.

Generally, I think if a patient needs blood transfusions there's a bigger and more immediate life-and-death problem right there. I think allergies would be preferable to death. Is my understanding correct? I hope blood transfusion hasn't become a routine procedure these days.

I don't think GC was suggesting that we stop blood transfusions, but rather that we do better tracking to improve our understanding in a way that normally would be unethical (if not for the fact that, as you say, blood transfusions are a life-saving intervention).

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

#97

Post by bobsmooth »

kccqzy wrote: post #73
eigenvalue wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s nuts. Seems like researchers should look really closely at weird side effects of blood transfusions since these are effectively “natural experiments” that would be impossible or unethical to run normally.

Generally, I think if a patient needs blood transfusions there's a bigger and more immediate life-and-death problem right there. I think allergies would be preferable to death. Is my understanding correct? I hope blood transfusion hasn't become a routine procedure these days.

You get a blood transfusion for any major surgery.

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

#98

Post by devmor »

caycep wrote: post #44

There is a line of research into the "transmissible' phenomena of a lot of these neurodegen dz. Epidemiologically, it's probably not infectious from one person to another bc we don't see spouses getting PD or AD often. But there's interesting phenomena - i.e. one of the Parkinson's stem cell implantation trials got a lot of press after the trial (which failed, didn't show benefit) bc after subjects passed several yea…

Can you explain more or give a source on that parkinsons stem cell trial? I’m not sure I understand what happened and I’d like to learn about it.

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

#99

Post by devmor »

gustavus wrote: post #86

I'll admit that I am somewhat ignorant here. But I thoughts the "Alzheimer's is caused by plaque buildup in the brain" theory was on its last leg and pretty much disregarded by most new scientists.

I am also a layman but I believe I’ve read that its no longer believed to be caused by the plaque, but the plaque is a clear signal/comorbidity of the underlying cause - whatever it is?
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