Afaict, this is not an entirely new finding. For example, this page (<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07771-6" rel="nofollow">https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07771-6</a>) 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.<p>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.
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 body, it seems like you are introducing a lot more uncertainty and risk than when you inject a person with a comparatively "simple" small-molecule drug.
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 years later and got autopsied, they found clumps of parkinsonian proteins (lewy bodies) on the histology slides of the implanted stem cells.<p>Similarly, there's some papers w/ mice w/ knockout Parkinsonian genes getting parkinsonian features and lewy bodies when injected w/ abnormal misfolded synuclein from another mouse.<p>What exactly to do w/ this, no one is entirely sure yet.
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.
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.
I've often wondered if Alzheimer's is actually novel instances of prion disease.<p>For instance, Kuru was developed within I think a handful of generations in a population of ~20,000 with limited opportunities for transmission (only transmitted when someone dies and their family eats their brain).<p>If the base incidence rate for a novel prion is that high, can you explain Alzheimer's as just that? It would be sad news for pharmaceutical companies - it would render Alzheimer's as a disease in the same class as cancer. Total systems breakdowns that are low-probability but inevitable on a long enough timescale.
4 hours ago: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39179368">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39179368</a><p>Recycled comment follows.<p>___________<p>To highlight:<p>> 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 <i>no longer used</i>.<p>Also that there is zero-reason to believe in any person-to-person spread:<p>> The study does not suggest that forms of dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease can be contagious.<p>Lastly, a fun vocabulary word [not in that article]: "Iatrogenic" - An illness caused by medical examination or treatment.
This is really fascinating, horrifying and hopeful at the same time.<p>It makes sense that some neurodegenerative diseases with unknown etiologies are caused by prions or prion-like proteins.<p>It could be fruitful to study the rate of Alzheimer's among nursing assistants who work in elder care. I found a few resourcas stating a higher rate for caregiver's in general along with nurses.<p>I have thought decreased immune function from aging leads to the increased permeability of the blood brain barrier: which leads to the infiltration of pathogens and now possibly prions.<p>I would assume this could be, or possibly has been, studied in animal models.
This is one of the reasons that, despite no direct evidence of harm, I will only ever take marine collagen instead of bovine collagen.<p>Do not fuck with the possibility of ingesting cow nervous system tissue, let alone human.
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Thanks to CIC Biogune too for the early research:<p><a href="https://www.cicbiogune.es/news/us-alzheimer-association-funds-cic-biogune-research-aimed-identifying-new-approach-early" rel="nofollow">https://www.cicbiogune.es/news/us-alzheimer-association-fund...</a>
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'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.
I actually don't believe this conclusion based off the fact that it would be slam-dunk evidence for the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's, which we don't have.
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? <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cwd/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cwd/index.html</a><p>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.<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/hpv/public/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/hpv/public/index.html</a>
Guys, don't get distracted by all the new mysterious causes of Alzheimers.<p>Alzheimers is "brain diabetes". You get it from a lifetime of eating carbs and developing insulin resistance.<p>Big pharma and big agriculture will never want you to know this, so it will take years before this becomes common knowledge.
I wonder what other practices from decades ago are lurking to be discovered as catastrophic to currently living people.<p>I remember reading about cattle rearing practices a while ago that might be responsible for some prion related diseases. Can’t remember the exact source. These things get you from entirely unrelated sources.
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".<p>[0] <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-68126907" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-68126907</a>