Alzheimer's Disease a Prion?
By Dr. Ron McCluskey
by Dr.
Ron McCluskey
There is one crucial question that seems to be the third
rail of prion research. That is - Is Alzheimer's Disease caused by a
Prion?
You may be wondering what a prion is and why you should care. Well, your ears
might perk up a lot if you hear the words - 'Mad Cow Disease'. That disease is
caused by a transmissible prion.
Prion related diseases have been recognized for years. However, until
recently we did not realize what caused them. What we did know about them is
that they caused dementia. People gradually lost their ability to reason and
remember things. We also noticed that there were typical changes in the brain
when looked at during autopsy.
Prions became famous when Kuru was found among the Fore people of New Guinea.
In this disease, people would get unsteady gait, tremors, and slurred speech.
The interesting thing was that only women and children seemed to get the
disease. It was finally noticed that when a person died, his family would eat
him as a way to honor the dead. But only the women and children participated in
this practice. Scientists found that by stopping this practice, the incidence of
the disease suddenly plummeted.
Further research in Kuru found that the cause was a protein - not a bacteria
or virus. Furthermore, there was no way to destroy this protein by filtering or
cooking. Proteins are formed as a long molecule that then folds over and over.
The shape of the folded molecule determines how it functions. It also determines
what enzymes in the body are needed to break it down when it is no longer
needed. The prion works by causing a protein in the brain into the wrong shape.
Therefore it does not work and the brain makes more and more of the chemical -
trying to make enough of the protein to fill the need of the body. The real
devastation of the disease though is that the resulting misshapen chemical does
not have enzymes in the body that can break it down! So the protein builds up in
large amounts that become toxic to brain cells and finally cause them to die.
Once scientists realized the cause and effect of this prion, several other
known diseases were found that fit this pattern. These included scrapie (found
in sheep), chronic wasting disease (found in deer and elk), Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease and fatal familial insomnia in humans, and bovine spongiform
encephalopathy in cattle (also known as mad cow disease).
What is not known is if there is a connection to prion disease and
Alzheimer's disease. We have recognized several genetic mutations that can cause
Alzheimer's disease and form prions in the body of the person with the mutation.
However, this does not account for the total number of those with Alzheimer's
disease.
One piece of evidence that is suspicious. It is known that people who
habitually eat meat more than four times a week have three times as much chance
of getting Alzheimer's disease than vegetarians. However, at least some of this
statistic could be related to increasing arteriosclerosis (hardening of the
arteries) in those that eat meat.
If there is a prion that causes Alzheimer's disease that you can get from
eating meat, why can't you easily prove or disprove it? Well, here is the
problem. The currently know prions cause disease fast enough that you can put
the prions into lab animals like white mice and they get the disease. However,
have you ever seen a mouse live as long as someone who has Alzheimer's disease?
Of course not.
We do know that prions come in strains that vary widely in the amount of time
that it takes to cause the disease. So, here is the big question. What if there
were a prion that caused disease in humans, but it took longer to cause problems
than the lifespan of the animal that it came from? For instance, if cows live 10
years but it takes 50 years for the disease to show up, you would never - ever
see the disease in cows even if they carried the disease. The same goes for
chickens, sheep and pigs. You see the problem?
At this point, we do know that one fact - that you get only 1/3 as much
dementia if you are a vegetarian. Until more is known about what is really in
fact safe to eat, vegetarians have a leg up on carnivores on this issue.
Come to Eight Steps to Health for more great health information from Dr. Ron About the Author
Dr. Ron is an Emergency Room physician with over twenty years experience in the health care field. He often treats people for problems with their weight. Come to
Balanced Diet
Health now for more great resources.
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