Sounds like a sensible next step would be to try and replicate this in animal models (i.e. treat animals with growth hormones extracted from cadavers of same species) to identify the proteins/prions that trigger the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's, which could perhaps be drug targets for at least a subset of AD causes.
Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure
181–190 of 247 posts
Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure
#182There 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…
> What exactly to do w/ this, no one is entirely sure yet.
Sounds like a sensible next step would be to try and replicate this in animal models (i.e. treat animals with growth hormones extracted from cadavers of same species) to identify the proteins/prions that trigger the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's, which could perhaps be drug targets for at least a subset of AD causes.
Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure
#183I 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…
> I wonder what other stuff is being unwittingly transferred during standard blood transfusions.
Back in the early 1990s my wife worked in epidemiology studies at the national blood agency in our country. There was a lot of work to be done since at the time being a hemophiliac and receiving blood products meant a good chance of dying from AIDS or non-A non-B hepatitis (now known as Hep C). The agency did not test each and every donation for the presence of these pathogens because the available inexpensive tests had a poor success rate (high false positive) and the better tests were prohibitively expensive and the policy was "if we destroyed any suspected donations we'd have to destroy all of them". The idea of a screening questionnaire was floated but because most sexually transmissible diseases are also transmissible through blood, the question "Have you ever had sex?" would eliminate quite a few donations. They were a tough time for the blood agency.
Thankfully technology has progressed and testing for known pathogens in a blood sample is rapid and inexpensive. Testing for unknown pathogens is still a challenge.
Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I see no reason to eat those franken-foods just because you're a vegan, a lot of them have strange additives to make them taste and look like animal stuff, it is simply not worth the risk to eat them IMHO. "Just Egg" is mung bean and canola oil. You can DIY it for cheaper, it's like buying pancake mix. There's always a few strange additives for these sorts of products (improve shelf life, anti-caking, emulsion, wha…
Seed oils like canola aren't great for health. They're fairly new to the food stream (only widely available since about 1900), heavily processed, and chock full of compounds the plant was making to protect it's seeds, many of which cause inflammation and other negative health effects. Olive oil, coconut oil, and animal fats have all been in use longer, and seem to be better for us. Avocado oil also seems to be decent…
Any proper evidence or is this just some internet meme? https://www.consumerreports.org/health/healthy-eating/do-see...
Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, these paragraphs from the paper sounds like the amyloid proteins can sometimes look/act like a prion if you squint: > The far wider relevance of prion mechanisms was first exemplified with the discovery of yeast prions but has also widened considerably with the recognition that the more common human neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, involve accumulation and spread of as…
The thing is (despite popular misconception that prions are common and many proteins that can turn into prions), there is only a specific protein that can be a prion- the PrP protein. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_prion_protein Demonstrating "some other other protein behaving like a prion" is close to nobel prize territory.
Wikipedia seems to say there's another one:
>All known mammalian prion diseases were caused by PrP until 2015, when a prion form of alpha-synuclein was hypothesized to cause multiple system atrophy (MSA).[10]
Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure
#186I 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…
> I wonder what other stuff is being unwittingly transferred during standard blood transfusions. Back in the early 1990s my wife worked in epidemiology studies at the national blood agency in our country. There was a lot of work to be done since at the time being a hemophiliac and receiving blood products meant a good chance of dying from AIDS or non-A non-B hepatitis (now known as Hep C). The agency did not test eac…
If you want to read more about this history in the US, I cannot recommend And the Band Played On highly enough. The book deals with the early history of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and touches on the issues related to blood donations and transfusions given the technical limitations at the time.
It's also a crushingly depressing book.
Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure
#187Sounds like a sensible next step would be to try and replicate this in animal models (i.e. treat animals with growth hormones extracted from cadavers of same species) to identify the proteins/prions that trigger the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's, which could perhaps be drug targets for at least a subset of AD causes.
If they still have some samples of this old, corpse-sourced hormone, perhaps they can analyse them to try isolate candidate compounds.
Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure
#188prions
Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
The doctor or their patients have the higher risk?
if I remember correctly Dentists had more cases of alzheimer than other groups of doctors. I heard it some time ago. If is a prion, it should resist most sterilization of dental instruments by heat on autoclave. So is obvious IMAO that this could be a way to spread the disease from one patient to other, but I'm not an expert on clinic procedures and the protocols may have been updated. This is known, or at least susp…
>Dentists had more cases of alzheimer than other groups of doctors
Herpes?
1. Travels along nerve cells
2. Causes lifelong infection
3. Can enter the brain (HSV encephalitis)
4. Herpetic whitlow used to be an occupational disease of dental workers (still is to some extent)
"Overwhelming Evidence for a Major Role for Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 (HSV1) in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD); Underwhelming Evidence against"
Re: Alzheimer’s cases tied to no-longer-used medical procedure
#190Afaict, 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 h…
It mentions brain proteins contaminating it, makes me think of prions.
What I found odd, is in the article it talked of the importance of sterilising medical tools used, that may have had prions on them. Prions can't even be destroyed by extreme temperatures, they are extremely scary.