Alzheimer’s Spreads Like a Virus in the Brain, Studies Find

[Stuart G]

New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/health/research/alzheimers-spreads-like-a-virus-in-the-brain-studies-find.html?hp

Alzheimer’s Spreads Like a Virus in the Brain, Studies Find

By GINA KOLATA

Published: February 1, 2012

Alzheimer’s disease seems to spread like an infection from brain cell to brain cell, two new studies find. But instead of viruses or bacteria, what is being spread is a distorted protein known as tau.

The surprising finding answers a longstanding question and has immediate implications for developing treatments, researchers said. And they suspect that other degenerative brain diseases like Parkinson’s may spread in a similar way.

But for more than a quarter-century, researchers have been unable to decide between two explanations. One is that the spread may mean that the disease is transmitted from neuron to neuron, perhaps along the paths that nerve cells use to communicate with one another. Or it could simply mean that some brain areas are more resilient than others and resist the disease longer.

[gateley]

1. Wow - this is hopeful! nt

[xfundy]

2. It's a vile, very cruel disease.

It's in my family, so I'm very concerned for my own future.

I've read that India has the lowest rate of Alzheimers, possibly due to the inclusion of ground turmeric, which has a bright yellow color. I've been using it in scrambled eggs or anything I make that naturally has a yellow color. It's in mustard, too.

[zentrum]

4. That's interesting

But in India they also eat more rice, drink more tea, never eat beef, eat less processed food, less cheese. There are a lot of variables in the differences between the two diets.

[thecrow]

10. Also, they are probably a different race than most of us,

and have thousands of years of history of eating those foodstuffs.
I suspect it is the beef, as I read the possible relationship between mad cow disease and AZ disease years ago.
It would be interesting to see if there are younger Indians who eat, say, McD's hamburgers frequently and what their
ratio of AZ disease turns out to be.

I thank Dr. Oz for featuring it on his show, and have increased my curry intake, but I doubt that is gonna cure me if I have it.

[Ecumenist]

15. It's not AZ it's new variant Creuzfeldt-Jacob disease... in some ways, alot more cruel

and horrific because they know something's happening to them.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

13. no, its the ingredient in turmeric.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-12/potn-usn122804.php

[thecrow]

16. From your link....

"Yellow pigment in curry spice blocks, breaks up brain plaques in mice"

Turmeric is acomponent of curry...

[La Lioness Priyanka]

17. turmeric is what makes curry yellow. curcumin is part of turmeric

[mopinko]

9. people don't live long enough to get it in india.

with an average span of 64 years, not that many live long enough to get it.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

12. the average doesn't mean that a lot of people don't live into their 80's

anyway the study in mice shows that its an ingredient in turmeric that is a factor in slowing alzheimers

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-12/potn-usn122804.php

[Dont call me Shirley]

14. And cancer

[kestrel91316]

3. IMHO that is because it is caused by prions, which function like an infectious organism.

BASE >>>> Alzheimer's, IMHO.

[AllyCat]

5. I have read a number of things stating this and the scientists were labeled as crackpots

It seems the most plausible explanation to me. One of the articles I read in our local weekly some years ago was about Mad Cow disease. The UW researcher said that a similar disease existed in mink populations. He ground up some of the infected cattle offal and put it in the diet for the mink. Viola...many of the uninfected mink got sick.

He suggested this might be how ATD spreads and detractors thought he was nuts.

Needless to say, his funding got pulled within a year or so if I recall correctly.

[rurallib]

7. many years ago I read an article in Discover magazine about populations

that ate squirrel in something called burgoo stew.
The populations were isolated to an area in Kentucky and their kinfolk in England.
The squirrels were infected with their form of mad cow. The stew included the brains of the animal.
A form of Crutchfield-Jacob disease was prevelant among the population.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

8. it's not an infection

When the barrier in the brain is damaged it can no longer screen out the damaging proteins (not prions) that cause the actual damage to the brain cells themselves.
It's basically a misfolding protein disorder.

[kestrel91316]

11. Prions are called "infectious" proteins. i meant it in that sense. Contagious. Not a living thing.

[GTurck]

6. Wonder how...

this meshes with research on cynobacteria and BMAA in the brains of ALS, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's? Just read about that on Alternet yesterday.