> > > >Second was the incubation period in humans. The caller said 5 to 40 years > >and it's 100% fatal. True, false, real facts?
Creuzfeld Jakob (CJD) the human prion disease usually occurs in 50-60 old patients. The disease is usually not infectious. It occurs secondary to spontaneous conversion of the prion protein to its abnormal isoform. In some cases there is a hereditary predilection - a greater than normal for the protein to flip. It is of course difficult in these circumstances to know when the disease begins but given the rapid progression of clinical abnormalities in patients with CJD it is unlikely that the disease is present for any signficant period of time before becoming symptomatic. As to the infectious cases - post transfusion, corneal transplant, reuse of instruments exposed to CJD, etc - in these cases the disease occurs relatively quickly after infection - probably within a year. > > > >The third, related to the long human incubation period, was that it may be > >causing Alzheimer disease. Somebody eating bad meat 30 years ago gets > >diagnosed with Alzheimer today. > This cannot be true. The symptoms of Alzheimers Disease (AD)are different from CJD - there is a major motor component to CJD not seen in AD and it progresses much more rapidly. CJD has characteristic MR findings that are never seen in AD. The mad cow epidemic in England was the result of a change in the meat rendering process. Therefore it is extremely unlikely that humans have been eating infected cows for very long. It is important to note that the spongiform encephalopathies skip between species only with great difficulty (there are still only a few cases of mad cow in humans - New CJD Variant). > >> Bra�a�ains Maru > > > -- Ronn! :) > > _______________________________________________ > http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
