Alzheimer's traces found seeded in autopsied brains, scientists report
- September 10, 2015, 9:40 pm
- National News
- 88 Views
HQ City Desk
QUETTA: An Alzheimer's protein has been found in the brains of people who received injections of human growth hormone in the U.K. decades ago, offering possible clues to how Alzheimer's disease is transmitted
About 15,000 people now living worldwide received such human growth hormone injections.
More than 200 of them developed the brain-wasting illness Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) after they were treated with human growth hormone as children, mainly for growth deficiency.
The discovery may offer clues to how degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's occur and how they spread, researchers say.
Before 1985, human growth hormone was made from thousands of human pituitary glands from just outside the brain that were pooled together. Human growth hormone is now made in the lab.
'Very special situation':
Four showed substantial Alzheimer's-like pathology, Collinge told reporters. Only one of the eight was free of any the amyloid-beta protein.
"It's important to understand that this relates to a very special situation where people have been injected with essentially extracts of human tissue. In no way is this suggesting that Alzheimer's disease is in any way a contagious disease," Collinge said.
In mice and monkey models, scientists have taken brain tissue of humans who died of Alzheimer's disease and injected it into the animals, which went on to develop Alzheimer's-like pathology. Collinge believes this is the most likely explanation for the human cases among those injected with human growth hormone.
The researchers believe the batches of human pituitary gland were likely contaminated with the amyloid-beta protein common in the elderly.
Since the study simply describes what happened to these people, it doesn't prove growth hormone injections caused the amyloid protein buildup.
