A study carried out by University College London, and published through Nature Medicinereveals the first cases of Alzheimer’s transmission.
In the middle of the previous century, there was a medical treatment whose purpose was to apply a growth hormone to people of short stature. Furthermore, it was extracted from the brain tissue of corpses.
In 1985, the method was completely banned. The reason? The hormone c-hGH was found to be contaminated and caused some patients to develop Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which in turn can lead to dementia.
Well, the experiment of the aforementioned academic institution found that five people in the United Kingdom, who received the described growth hormone for several years before its ban, suffered the transmission of the amyloid beta protein, which when accumulated forms neuritic plaques that are precursors of Alzheimer’s. They are, therefore, the first cases of accidental contagion of said disease.
It is important to mention, however, that The above does not imply that Alzheimer’s can be spread or spread like other more common diseases.. In fact, University College made it clear that this strange event occurred due to medical procedures that are no longer in force.
“This study suggests that, in very rare circumstances, Alzheimer’s can be transmitted between humans through growth hormone from deceased donors. It must be emphasized that this treatment is no longer used today and has been replaced by synthetic growth hormone. “It is also important to note that this is the only recorded case of transmission of Alzheimer’s between humans,” said John Collinge, head of the study and director of the Institute of Prion Diseases at University College London.
A key milestone to continue studying the Alzheimer’s
So now we know that Alzheimer’s certainly can be transmitted, but very specific conditions must be met. The same researchers use prion diseases as an example, considered rare because only approximately 1 to 1.5 cases per million inhabitants per year are documented. In the case of Alzheimer’s transmission, the figure may be even lower, since responsible medical treatment ceased to exist almost 4 decades ago.
In an interview with The country, neurologist Pascual Sánchez Juan shared the idea that Alzheimer’s, under normal conditions, is not contagious. “Alzheimer’s is not contagious. Dealing with patients at home or in nursing homes does not imply any risk. If we are able to know the specific strain, we will be able to better direct the treatment of each patient, but we have not yet been able to correlate this diversity of the amyloid beta plaques with the different clinical subtypes of Alzheimer’s disease,” he commented.
Despite the above, it is still interesting to know these reasons in depth. the influence it can have to continue studying treatments against Alzheimer’s.
“It appears that what is happening in Alzheimer’s disease is very similar, in many ways, to what is happening with prion diseases, such as CJD [Enfermedad de Creutzfeldt-Jakob]. “This raises several implications for therapeutic approaches for Alzheimer’s disease,” Collinge added.
Of course, with this research we can also deduce that poorly applied brain surgery could be the cause of the transmission of Alzheimer’s, right? In theory, it would be possible, yes. For this reason, Collinge calls for the study to be the watershed “to review measures to prevent accidental transmissions through other medical and surgical procedures.”