3 ms·
We don't eat the brains of people with Alzheimer's, so we don't see it transmit? I know CWD transmits from pretty much any shedding of the animal, but is that
by jovial_cavalier 3y ago
We don't eat the brains of people with Alzheimer's, so we don't see it transmit?
I know CWD transmits from pretty much any shedding of the animal, but is that necessarily universally true?
Can we map that onto human beings who practice hygeine and don't eat leaves that another human urinated on?
- karmajunkie 3y agoconsumption of neural tissue isn’t the only transmission vector though. (See TFA for an example, in fact.) If it were a prion disease, just the law of averages dictates that we’d see some transmission from things like organ transplants from pre-symptomatic carriers. There’s no evidence of that at all that i’m aware of. (disclaimer: I work at a startup in cognitive testing, so while i’m certainly not a researcher in the field, i do see quite a bit of research on dementia-adjacent diseases)
- jovial_cavalier 3y agoBut don't you also have a windowing effect there? How many >50 y/o people are donating their organs? You could also explain the age skewness by allowing for the fact that it takes time for the prions to replicate to the point that you notice symptoms. Other I think this would predict: lifetime exposure to mutagens is a predictor for Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's is more heritable from the mother than the father.