Thursday Spet 10, 2015 (foodconsumer.org) -- A new study reported recently in Nature suggests that Alzheimer's disease could be transmitted through some medical procedures.

It has been known earlier that tainted medical equipment can be a vehicle for the transmission of the human form of mad cow disease known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).  

CJD, which may afflict thousands of men and women in the UK, can also be developed in people who have eaten beef contaminated with abnormal proteins called prions, which cause mad cow disease in cows.  CJD may not be as lethal as thought and some patients may not even experience symptoms for years.  

Some people such as Terry S. Singeltary Sr. whose mother died from mad cow disease, believe that prions can cause not only mad cow disease, but also neurological disorders like Alzheimer's disease.

The new study report says that about 6% of people who received treatment with the human growth hormone, which is harvested from the pituitary glands of dead people, were diagnosed with CJD.  It is not news that CJD can be transmitted from person to person through medical procedures.

What is surprising was that some patients who were treated with the human growth hormone and developed CJD also developed Alzheimer's disease, which prompted scientists to believe that some abnormal amyloid beta proteins involved in the development of Alzheimer's disease may also be transmittable as prions that cause CJD.

The study is observational and it does not rule out the possible role of prions in the etiology of Alzheimer's disease in the patients who also developed CJD due to use of the tainted human growth hormone.

The use of the human growth hormone from dead people discontinued after 1985.  Still, doctors fear that thousands of young men and women might have developed Alzheimer's disease due to use of the human growth hormone.  Alzheimer's disease is often diagnosed in people ages 65 or older.

There is no cure for Alzheimer's disease, which can completely disable and eventually kill the patients. (David Liu)