You learn something new every day; what did you learn today? Submit interesting and specific facts about something that you just found out here.
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Just to put your mind at ease:
Did they ever use this research to try and learn more about these conditions through bone marrow of the effected vs centenarians etc that don’t get it?
I don’t know enough about this stuff but Alzheimer’s/parkinsons has had 3 of my grandparents and it’s horrible to see what these conditions do. Hoping more progress is made soon, I don’t want to be in my parents position watching their parents drain away.
This just screams of prions...
Stan Prusiner has argued ABeta (among other proteins) are prions. Scientifically justifiable based on the original definition, but calling them prion-like is more accepted.
I think Kandel promoted this idea for a long time too, as well as other prion-like factors playing roles in healthy memory formation.
Agreed
CJD and HCJD used to scared the living daylights out of me. Still do really, any prion disease is scary simply because prions are a perfect killer. No cure
Agreed. I've never been allowed to give blood because I had a blood transfusion myself as a baby in the late 80s (UK). I've always known this but never thought to look into it any further - until a few years ago, when I read up on it and discovered it's because I could have received THE PRIONS (at the height of the BSE crisis) because there's no way to test donor blood for them. Obviously it's a very slim chance, but my anxiety likes to taunt me with it occasionally.
Good news: Prion diseases are making a comeback and might be the next major zoonotic illness to escalate to a major societal problem
https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000204407
I knew a guy that died of CJD. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody
How come you don’t want to get a prion disease
Prions a0rent even a thing on their own. They are just misf op lied proteins with bad code that cause surrounding p otiens to code falsely and fold. It's like a precursor to a se p era0e ent0ity.
I think it absolutely is.
This basically 100% proves Alzheimer’s is not just some random neurodegenerative disease some people are predisposed to genetically. Some people obviously are, but that’s very clearly not all it is.
If you can spread it from person to person, there is SOME type of microorganism or causative agent, at work (I think prions).
So the next question is since there’s also a genetic component, how do genetics and this causative agent intertwine. It’d be like a mother with the flu passing on the flu to the newborn just from being born. How does someone pass that on to their offspring? Or are they just passing on inability to fight off that causative agent?
You’re just scrapie’ing the surface
I learned about it 7 years ago I think here's the article from 2015
https://www.nature.com/articles/nrneurol.2015.190
Well, that provides some comfort, but it's still disturbing.
Don't worry. You won't remember.
Considering it can still be weaponized by state actors and terrorists, my mind is not at ease on the matter.
Sounds like the plot of some dystopia sci-fi. Still, if you've got access to someone to the point where you can inject human growth hormone into them, you can probably do a lot worse than increased risk of Alzheimer's.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_the_Whole_Mess
Religious fanatics are the ones I worry about.
State actors want to take over places and resources, and humans are still a resource to be utilized if possible.
Salting the earth with prions is counter productive for states.
States have no problem, historically, destroying what they can't take but can be used against them. (Grozny for just one example from a current state actor of concern) All the more so when there are multiple significant states, even major regional powers, run by megalomaniacal dictators. There are also the 'Mullah Omar's of the world that qualify under both.
What if I'm using Mutant Growth Hormone?
I was gonna guess headbutt
Suddenly 93% of redditors that read this post will believe they are going to catch alzheimers because they failed to actually read the source.
At the very least, it would be a good precaution to not eat the pituitary gland of anyone you suspect of having Alzheimer’s.
Fuck
you took too much man, you took too much, too much
But that’s the best part
Dude now you tell me? Where were you Monday?!
r/UsernameChecksOut
So reading the source will prevent me from catching the alzheimers, huh?
This guy. This guy comprehends.
I’m thinking Alz isn’t the only medical condition that could be transferred in this manner…seems like a whole host of others could as well; it just hasn’t been documented yet.
CJD, fatal familial insomnia and kuru are the only ones we know about so far.
Edit: forgot Gerstmann–Sträussler–Scheinker syndrome
I had never heard of FFI before, what a terrifying disease
How am I gonna sleep tonight knowing that
Literally my worst nightmare. It's the worst thing I can imagine. I've known about it for years and still think about it regularly.
Would you say it... keeps you up at night?
Hey, if you’re having nightmares, you’re safe as can be lol
That's how you catch it. 😔
STOP!
The good news is that it is extremely, extremely rare. It's called fatal familial insomnia because it only runs in a couple of families
But yeah it's a pretty unpleasant disease. Sadly there's basically nothing medical professionals can do
“although sometimes, the disorder occurs randomly, without a variant PRNP gene (sporadic fatal insomnia, or SFI).”
Sleep while you still can!
I've never heard of GSS Syndrome somehow. I've been fascinated by prions since the 1990s. How did I miss this one?
It's genetic. Those families actually thought they were cursed
Aren’t these all prion related?
Edit: I looked each one up, and yes, they are all indeed prion related. For those that don’t know what Prions are, they fantastically fucking terrifying and impossible to cure with current medical knowledge, and damn near impossible to clean/remove, often necessitating incineration at over 2000°C. Worse part, is the symptoms don’t usually show up for a decade, so you wouldn’t know you had it.
Indeed. As far as I know Alzheimer’s isn’t necessarily a prion disease itself, but the amyloid plaques that are a hallmark of it seem to spread through prion like behavior. Which I’m guessing is how these patients ended up at a prion clinic.
Edit: or my brain might have skipped a paragraph:
I meant specifically the ones mentioned in the comment directly above mine. CJD, FFI, Kuru, GSSS.
From what I know of Alzheimer’s, it’s caused (at least in part) by the brain not clearing away the various metabolites properly, aka build up of garbage molecules. I know there’s research being done on increased aluminum in the diet affecting/causing Alzheimer’s as well. I’m by no means an expert, however I have a strong chance of getting it when I’m older due to a variety of risk factors, so i pay attention to new studies.
Was reading a case of a woman whos entire family had alzheimer's and her brain was filled with amyloid plaques but seemed to be cognitively normal. Its seemed she had the a mutation causing the accumulation of amyloid but had a second mutation preventing them from becoming neurotoxic
See one or two cases with people who had cjd living years using Pentosan polysulfate but by the time it was used they were already very far gone one lived 16 years but it sounds like the quality of there life was shit. So if it does work it better be used as early as possible
I checked it out, and that’s listed in the wiki page for the chemical. Fascinating. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentosan_polysulfate
How about Parkinson’s?
The underlying cause of Parkinson’s has yet to be identified, so maybe.
Trouble is that Alzheimer’s is more than likely a symptom of several different conditions which we can’t yet tell apart. Similar to cancer, they all have similar enough effects on the brain that we can’t tell one disease from another. And much like cancer it’s why we can’t just find one easy cure because they’re all different diseases at their core.
That's both true and scary 😮💨
Strap in for even newer surprises now that we are starting to do trans-species transplantation.
"Seems like" based on what? Gut feelings and science don't combine.
The probably mechanism for this is explained in the article, and there aren't many human diseases resulting from misfolded proteins operating in a prion-like manner.
Also this study only had 8 patients. Grain of salt and all that.
cancers
Oncologists and nurses would have much higher cancer rates then
Fascinating, I also feel this property will play a role in its cure.
All prion related diseases, both contagious and fatal with the problem being decades gestational presentation - CJD and its variants is one, Scrapie, CWD (why I don’t eat deer), but is also indicated in Dementia, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s as well
Don't eat deer. Will remember this!
The nuance is actually really interesting here. We currently don't have any confirmed cases of CWD transferring to humans, but there are a couple anecdotal reports. Recently it was reported that a couple deer hunters who visit the same sites both developed CWD/CJD symptoms, though the connection can't be proven.
But yes, the day that CWD crosses over is the day that venison leaves the menu for good.
Don’t eat deer from east of the Rockies. It’s not documented in the west i think
Officially documented in Yellowstone NP
https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/news/23041.htm
Don't eat deer that hasn't been tested, at least. It's a hassle, where I live, to get the deer tested, but to me, it is worth it.
Alzheimer's scares me. It's like losing the key to your own mind. I imagine opening a door, and instead of my memories, there's just a black hole that sucks in everything.
Yeah I agree. I'm more afraid of Alzheimer's / Dementia than I am early death.
100%
I remember reading about neurosurgeons having much higher risk to end up with alzheimer’s.
Forget where though.
https://thejns.org/view/journals/j-neurosurg/113/3/article-p474.xml#:~:text=Neurosurgeons%20were%20more%20likely%20to,compared%20with%20the%20general%20population.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/09/09/645629133/infectious-theory-of-alzheimers-disease-draws-fresh-interest
"Like Freaky Friday."
"Bill...it's Wednesday."
Dental implants often require bone grafts. The bone comes from corpses.
Wonder if this is risky too?
My son has donor bone in his knee.
Thanks for the new fear.
Some Forms of Dementia are caused by infections + amyloid prions. The Sample taken from the pituitary gland was Very likely contaminated.
Comment removed by moderator
Hey don't hate I literally just used the article headline and it clearly said "rare medical accidents"
Am I missing something? The post headline is word for word the article headline, but with TIL in front.
So as a fellow PhD (in training) in a very different field, I’ve always wanted to ask an expert in this area on their opinion of the leading disease-modifying therapies for neurodegenerative disorders.
I work as a hardware researcher for quantum computing and a very long-term goal of mine is to help make this tech a reality for CRISPR-Cas9 therapies, primarily through organizing/targeting appropriate genomic sites and RNA sequences. That’s just one of the proposed applications as I’m not in that field, so most of my knowledge there is word-of-mouth. But, is CRISPR-Cas9 still seen as a viable therapy for the future, or has it been pushed out as not realistic?
Asyn?
Isn't this also the reason for prion disease?
Just like how back in '88, someone in the US got mad cow disease by going to the foot doctor.
Such a clickbait title it's the growth hormone incident
Newsflash blood transfers can also transmit infectious diseases
I have never in my life felt more fear of probability than I did while reading that article. The simple fact that this can happen literally can destroy multiple generations. Your parents if around when you get it will feel responsible, and kids and SO genuinely terrified of possibility of kids maybe getting affected.
The fear isn't really justified and the first thing the article mentioned is a banned medical practice not something you're gonna go out and get done today.
You saw the "rare" and "medical" parts, right? This was a small handful of freak incidents of folks receiving cadaver transplants of HGH material, a practice that a) no longer exists and b) can't be done at your kitchen table.
If it were common for AD to be a transmitted disease, this would have been evident for a long time already. This was emphasized in the article as well. You don't need to be so alarmed.
This is wrong. I’m a biochemist and PhD candidate studying prions and I work in medical device reprocessing, transmission of Alzheimers has also occurred through transplants, and since it’s so difficult to destroy misfolded amyloid proteins and prions in general there is a decent probability it has also been transmitted via surgical instruments and other contexts we’re just not aware of yet because it takes such a low, practically undetectable concentration of prions to transmit disease. Maybe your overconfidence comes from trying to reassure yourself and feel safer, but I promise if you actually study prions you’ll realise you shouldn’t feel so safe after all 😁
My overconfidence... that it only happens in rare transplant situations and not at kitchen tables, as the article states and as I summarized? Please reread the parent comment I responded to, which seems to me to be massively misstating the danger, and tell me where what I or the article said is an inappropriate response or incongruent with your statements.