A new and particularly disturbing study indicates that proteins involved in Alzheimer's disease may be 'contagious' between people through medical treatments, so that any doctor who previously treated a person who developed Alzheimer's may be a carrier of proteins that increase his risk of also having the disease.
We will elaborate on this very unpleasant discovery with the help of Claude.
British scientists found that dementia developed in 5 out of 8 patients who received cadaver-derived growth hormone injections as children in the 1960s to 1980s.
Analysis showed that abnormally high levels of Alzheimer's-related amyloid proteins in the brain likely originated from those injections.
It should be emphasized that the small sample size prevents conclusive conclusions.
Also, the 'suspicious' hormonal treatments are no longer performed.
However, these correlations add weight to similar conclusions obtained from animal studies, in which injection of amyloid extracts induced similar accumulation in the brain.
Critics claim that other factors can also contribute to the patients' cognitive decline.
Regardless, the research advances the recognition that degenerative disorders, centered on dementia and including Alzheimer's, may be caused not only by genetic factors, but also by factors that can be transferred between people.
The lead researcher, Dr. John Colling, emphasizes that the goal now is to take precautions against any factor, even a secondary and rare one, that may lead to neurodegenerative diseases.
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