The first cases of transmission of Alzheimer’s disease have been identified: the cause is treatment with growth hormones

A team of scientists from University College London has just discovered that growth hormone treatment used in childhood is responsible for the development of the disease Alzheimer’s disease five people from the UK. This is a scientific discovery published in the journal Natural medicine opens the path to new research and, above all, to new questions. Can Alzheimer’s disease be transmitted by certain treatments? This finding suggests that this is the case (iatrogenicity), although the truth is that there is no scientific evidence to date that this has occurred with other medical interventions.

Between 1959 and 1985 in the United Kingdom, 1,848 people were treated for height enhancement using hormones extracted from cadaveric pituitary glands

(c-hGH). This prohibited since 1985 because some batches were found to be contaminated with infectious proteins (prions). Then it was known that they were the cause of what happened. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in some patients is a very rare brain disease that eventually leads to dementia.

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In these cases, medicine preferred replace this treatment from cadaveric hormones for some syntheticwho were not at risk of transmitting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. For this reason, hormones from deceased people have not been used for decades. However, at that time nothing was known about its other adverse effect: the development of Alzheimer’s disease.

Alzheimer’s disease is progressive neurodegenerative disease It mainly affects older people, although it can occur earlier in life. Symptoms of this disease develop gradually and worsen over time, affecting various cognitive and behavioral functions

. They may be subtle at first and go unnoticed, but over time they become more obvious and interfere with a person’s daily activities.

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The main symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease include memory lossdifficulties in performing everyday tasks, disorientation in time and space, language difficulties and writing, decreased ability to make decisions, changes in mood and behavior, difficulty understanding images and spatial relationships…

IN SpainAlzheimer’s disease affects approximately 800,000 people, according to the latest data. It is the most common form of dementia, accounting for 60% to 70% of all cases of the disease in the country. The prevalence of this neurodegenerative disease increases with age and is more common in people over 65 years of age. However, it can also happen in younger people, in what is called early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

The incidence of Alzheimer’s disease in Spain has decreased on the rise in recent decades, partly due to aging population. This increase poses a challenge to health care and long-term care services as the disease requires specialized and ongoing care.