ICYMI: First-Ever Cases of Transmissible Alzheimer’s Documented

iStock.com via Olha Pohorielova

Patients who received growth hormone therapy derived from human cadavers’ brains showed signs of Alzheimer’s decades later, says a recent study published January 29 in Nature Medicine. 

The research group, associated with University College London, suggested the hormone treatment transferred beta-amyloid protein associated with Alzheimer’s into some recipients’ brains. Decades later, these proteins propagated into disease-causing plaques, effectively suggesting Alzheimer's transmission through the medical procedure.

This medical treatment involving the human cadaveric growth hormone was initially used for conditions causing short stature — like brain tumors, developmental disorders, or hormone deficiencies — but is no longer practiced today. And from 1959 to 1985, the study authors only recorded five Alzheimer’s patients out of over 1,800 people in the U.K. known to receive the cadaveric growth hormone. The study authors and other outside researchers also emphasized Alzheimer’s is not a contagious disease you could catch by caring for a relative.

Big Picture: The findings are the first to document that Alzheimer's can be transferred from one person to another during a medical procedure. This evidence creates some debate if amyloid proteins can be considered prions — misfolded pieces of protein that later cause certain types of neurodegenerative disorders — or whether Alzheimer's is transmissible in similar ways to diseases derived from prions.

Read More: Scientists document first-ever transmitted Alzheimer’s cases, tied to no-longer-used medical procedure. STAT

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About the Author

Tristan Rivera

Tristan is the Editorial Production Associate for BrainFacts.org. He graduated from the Pennsylvania State University in 2018 with a degree in Biobehavioral Health and previously worked on advocacy and scientific training projects at the Society for Neuroscience.