Alzheimer's may be able to SPREAD to organ transplant patients, study suggests ... trends now
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Alzheimer's disease could spread to patients who receive transplants containing potentially toxic genes, a study suggests.
Researchers in Canada are now calling for all donors to be screened for the disease in case cases are going undetected.
The new study looked at mice who had stem cells from their bone marrow transplanted from donors with familial Alzheimer's disease.
This type is caused by a single genetic mutation passed down through families and affects nearly 350,000 Americans and 1 percent of Alzheimer's cases in the UK.
Researchers in Canada found that mice who received bone marrow transplants containing stem cells with faulty genes developed Alzheimer's quicker than those who did not
A bombshell UK study evaluated five patients who were injected with growth hormones infected with toxic amyloid-beta protein 'seeds' as children. All five came down with the same rare early-onset form of the devastating dementia condition. Others who received the same treatment are now considered 'at risk'
Patients with this form of Alzheimer's carry a faulty version of the amyloid precursor protein (APP) gene, which can turn into plaques and degrade the brain.
For the first time, the study appeared to show that this process starts outside of the central nervous system and then travels to the brain where it causes the cognitive decline associated with Alzheimer's disease.
The team found that the mice showed signs of cognitive decline as young as six months old - in nearly half the time of those who did not have transplants.
The study comes amid bombshell evidence from the UK suggesting that at least five people 'caught' the memory-robbing disorder from a now-banned hormone treatment that was contaminated with toxic proteins from the bodies of diseased people.
The authors of the new research called for blood, tissue, and organ donors to be screened for Alzheimer's to prevent possibly spreading the disease.
