A team of researchers from UCL and UCLH have found startling evidence suggesting that Alzheimer’s disease, typically a late-life condition, may have been medically induced in some people decades earlier.
Their findings are published in Nature Medicine. They indicate a possible transmission of the amyloid-beta protein, commonly associated with Alzheimer’s, through medical treatments.
The participants had all received treatments in their childhood with a type of human growth hormone derived from the pituitary glands of deceased individuals (cadaver-derived human growth hormone, or c-hGH).
This hormone was administered to at least 1,848 people in the UK from 1959 to 1985 for various growth deficiencies.
However, in 1985, it was discovered that some batches of c-hGH were contaminated with prions, infectious proteins that caused Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), leading to its withdrawal and replacement with a synthetic variant.
The researchers previously reported that some patients who developed iatrogenic CJD due to c-hGH also showed early deposits of amyloid-beta protein in their brains, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s.
In a 2018 study, they found that archived c-hGH samples were contaminated with amyloid-beta protein and could transmit amyloid-beta pathology to laboratory mice.
The latest paper focuses on eight individuals treated with c-hGH as children, who were later referred to UCLH’s National Prion Clinic.
Among these, five displayed symptoms of dementia consistent with Alzheimer’s disease or mild cognitive impairment.
Notably, these individuals were between 38 and 55 years old when they began experiencing neurological symptoms – an unusually young age for Alzheimer’s onset.
Biomarker analyses in two patients confirmed the Alzheimer’s diagnosis, while autopsy analysis in another patient revealed Alzheimer’s pathology.
Genetic testing in five patients ruled out inherited forms of the disease, suggesting a link between their early-onset Alzheimer’s and their childhood c-hGH treatments.
This study raises big concerns about the long-term consequences of certain medical treatments and opens new avenues for research into the transmission and development of Alzheimer’s disease.
If you care about Alzheimer’s, please read studies about the likely cause of Alzheimer’s disease , and new non-drug treatment that could help prevent Alzheimer’s.
For more information about brain health, please see recent studies about diet that may help prevent Alzheimer’s, and results showing some dementia cases could be prevented by changing these 12 things.
The research findings can be found in Nature Medicine.
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