alzheimers news-is it contagious

ALZHEIMERS NEWS-IS IT CONTAGIOUS

there is a disease called cjd or creutzfeldt-jakob disease
most of us know a version of it called mad cow disease
a protein called a prion sits in the brain sometimes for years
then one day takes over the brain
causing a form of dementia and devastating neurological disease
called cjd

nature.com
if youve seen pictures of cows with mad cow disease
you can only imagine what it must look like in humans
these folks also develop dementia with the disease

well i would wish it only on my enemies

in years past
growth hormone like the athletes use was extracted from the
brains of cadavers
as a medical student i can remember harvesting the pituitary
gland during autopsies
from this gland growth hormone was extracted
this stuff was used on folks who couldnt produce it themselves
now its manufactured artificially in larger quantities

now what they have found is if the cadavers had that prion
in their brain it may have been passed to the recipient of
the growth hormone
causing the person to years later get
mad cow disease or cjd

other ways it may have been transmitted are
sometimes people received dura mater transplants from cadavers to cover
defects in this lining over the brain that can occur from
disease and trauma
or
from the use of contaminated instruments during brain surgery

the same thing seems to have happened to some of these
folks
they got cjd
a fatal disease

the mad cow disease was commonly transmitted in cattle feed
from feeding cattle ground up sheeps brains infected with the
prion
humans eating this contaminated beef could get
mad cow disease

cannibals also were found to get cjd or mad cow disease from
eating the brains of humans

now what they have found in the brains of some of these
growth hormone folks and dura mater transplant folks
are that they have changes in the brain that are seen with
alzheimers disease
the accumulation of the bad stuff beta amyloid and its plaques
implying that
maybe just maybe alzheimers disease may have been contagious

so
lucky for all of us is that this use of pituitary gland extract from
humans and the transplanting of cadaver dura mater doesnt exist now
so
hopefully this form of
contagious alzheimers disease will disappear

this disease after all is bad enough
without adding new ways to get it

the organicgreen doctor