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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

#151

Post by tsimionescu »

hmottestad wrote: post #36
pedalpete wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or that we've been lumping multiple different types of cognitive decline as a single disease.

Can’t you make a definitive diagnosis from an autopsy. Could be that multiple diseases lead to the same findings in the autopsy. While someone is alive a diagnosis of Alzheimers is more of a diagnosis of elimination. There are several drugs that can be used to slow the progression and I assume that those have a role to play in solidifying the diagnosis.

You can check for amyloid plaques in an autopsy, but apparently plenty of old people that show no significant cognitive decline also have amyloid plaques.

So, while we would definitively call it Alzheimer's if you have significant cognitive decline + amyloid plaques, it's not 100% clear that this is a single diagnostic.

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

#152

Post by jraph »

withinboredom wrote: post #150
jraph wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I ever had to declare allergies when donating my blood (France). They focus on infections and cancers I think. Why would they ask for allergies if we don't yet know that they can be transmitted like this?

I thought it was well known that certain allergies (eggs/peanuts) can transfer via transfusions? At least for awhile. It looks like there’s some literature on it at least, but I didn’t dig into it or anything. I just thought this was “common” knowledge since that’s what I was told years ago by a nurse I was dating in college, a long time ago.

Maybe it's known but I don't know about it :-)

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

#153

Post by tsimionescu »

mike_d wrote: post #75
m-i-l wrote: post #6

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…

> "The findings do not mean Alzheimer's is infectious" It may not be infectious like a cold or herpes, but it was amazing to me that it is transmissible. I spent some time Googling and it looks like the appropriate term is "Donor-Derived Infections."

I think that, in principle, any disease that a donor has has some small chance of affecting the recipient. Infections, cancers, prion diseases, toxins are well known to do so, some immune issues also have a clear pathway, but in principle even genetic issues could affect the recipient depending on a whole host of complicated biology that we don't fully understand.

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

#154

Post by yungporko »

caesil wrote: post #140

This is one of the reasons that, despite no direct evidence of harm, I will only ever take marine collagen instead of bovine collagen. Do not fuck with the possibility of ingesting cow nervous system tissue, let alone human.

why is cow or hunan nervous system tissue particularly dangerous? what animal is marine collagen from and why is it less dangerous?

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

#155

Post by yungporko »

fastball wrote: post #94

I'm somewhat surprised by this publication's restraint when referencing Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, as usually news orgs like mentioning the fact that Creutzfeldt-Jakob is the human form of mad cow disease.

it does say that that BSE is the bovine equivalent of CJD in the article

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

#156

Post by denysvitali »

msla wrote: post #112
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…

> w/ mice Is this a special kind of mouse?

w/ = with

w/o = without

This comment is full of abbreviations (PD = Parkinson's Disease, AD = Alzheimer's Disease) that makes it a bit difficult to read (if you don't know / realize what those abbreviations stand for)

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

#157

Post by d1sxeyes »

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.

No, eggs, not nuts.

I'll see myself out.

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

#158

Post by underlogic »

mike_d wrote: post #75
m-i-l wrote: post #6

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…

> "The findings do not mean Alzheimer's is infectious" It may not be infectious like a cold or herpes, but it was amazing to me that it is transmissible. I spent some time Googling and it looks like the appropriate term is "Donor-Derived Infections."

[dead]

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

#159

Post by pvaldes »

klipt wrote: post #137
goku12 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article mentions that the procedure was banned due to incidence of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. That is a prion disease.

They still use pieces of cadaver for other surgeries. E.g. gum and bone transplants done by periodontists. Seems risky to me.

Periodontists have been also linked with a higher number of Alzheimer cases. Is a group of risk in this disease.

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

#160

Post by pvaldes »

mbo wrote: post #127
msla wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> w/ mice Is this a special kind of mouse?

"w/" is an abbreviation for "with". "w/ mice" should be read as "with mice".

The savings of just two characters does not worth the effort and mental pause to decode it
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