Can you get Alzheimer’s? For many years doctors and scientists have tried to find the answer to this burning question. And then, finally, they came to a disappointing conclusion – it is possible. For a long time nobody could find any evidence that Alzheimer’s is transmitted through blood or surgical instruments. A new study has proven that the disease is likely transmitted through blood transfusion in the form of special protein that will eventually lead to the degeneration of the brain.
Similarly, you can pick up not only Alzheimer’s, but Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is a progressive degenerative disease of the cerebral cortex, basal ganglia and spinal cord. Like CJD, Alzheimer’s disease involves imbalanced protein called beta-amyloid. Protein forms the brain plaques that occur during the development of neurodegenerative diseases. However, scientists have not yet fully investigated this process, and they still have a lot of work. The results of their research were published in the journal Nature.
There is some evidence that beta-amyloid can spread like prions – infectious agents in the form of proteins with an abnormal tertiary structure and do not contain nucleic acids. A team of researchers from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, behind this opening, proposed to study the distribution of beta-amyloid through the blood products or through medical instruments. Research has shown that a blood transfusion from a mouse with Alzheimer’s a healthy mouse, the latter will also begin to form those plaques, which we mentioned just above. After the formation of the plaques brain tissue of healthy mice start to die.
This proves that Alzheimer’s really is able to spread via the beta-amyloid protein found in the blood. Studies were conducted on mice with a gene that creates a human version of beta-amyloid, because normal mice of Alzheimer’s disease does not happen. It took the scientists to in the brain of rodents formed plaques similar to those suffered by people with the disease. This experiment contradicts the studies that have been conducted at the beginning of this year. Then the scientists studied about 2 million inhabitants of Denmark and Sweden, which had a blood transfusion. The study showed that people who received transfusions of blood obtained from the Alzheimer’s patients not at high risk of disease. That’s why a team of scientists will continue to investigate this issue and to search for new answers to their questions.
Alzheimer’s disease can be transmitted by blood transfusion
Sergey Grey