When Dr John Collinge and his colleagues at University College London studied the brains of several people who had died of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (mad cow disease), they found that 7 out of 8 patients they had studied presented one of the signs of thehas Alzheimer’s disease. These had deposits of amyloid plaque in the brain (one of the signs of the disease), which they found surprising due to their young age (between 31 and 51) and the fact that none of them had no history of Alzheimer’s disease in their family.
On further reflection, the British researchers concluded that the disease had “potentially been transmitted via medical procedures”. The people who died had all contracted Jacob Creutzfeldt disease after injections of growth hormone. The researchers, whose study was published in the journal Nature, believe that the beta amyloid peptide accidentally spread in the same way as CJD, via contaminating proteins.
However, these results must be taken with caution because no one knows if the patients have developed Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, treatments based on growth hormones are no longer used today. “I don’t think these results are overly worrying,” says Dr Collinge. “This should not prevent anyone from having surgery because the procedures put in place are very rigorous and minimize the risk of infection.
The biggest risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease remains age and genetic factors as well as lifestyle. If other studies were to confirm this, it would only concern a tiny number of people “concludes the doctor.
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