Disturbing news from a Swiss medical journal suggests that Alzheimer’s may be transmissible during certain medical treatments.
A story on nature.com says that autopsies done on the brains of seven people who died of the rare brain-wasting Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease found that five of the brains displayed some of the signs associated with Alzheimer’s.
All of the people had received surgical grafts of dura mater — the membrane that covers the brain and spinal cord — from human cadavers that were contaminated with the protein that causes C-J disease.
The scientists suggested that the transplanted dura matter may have been contaminated with small seeds of amyloid protein, which some believe may be a triger for Alzheimer’s, along with the prion protein that gave the recipients C-J diasese.
The study does not imply that Alzheimer’s could ever be transmitted through normal contact with caretakers or family members.
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