杏吧原创

CAN Alzheimer鈥檚 disease spread between people? Possibly, through a medical procedure banned in 1985 鈥� but some say the evidence is too circumstantial.

of University College London and his colleagues looked at the brains of eight people who had been injected with human growth hormone as children. The hormone had come from dead donors 鈥� but they had been harbouring Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD). The eight recipients contracted CJD via the hormone and later died.

Now, fresh autopsies on their brains have revealed that six also had amyloid plaques similar to those seen in Alzheimer鈥檚 鈥� even though they had died between the ages of 36 and 51, long before the disease typically develops. Collinge believes molecules seeding the plaques were passed to the recipients via the donated growth hormone, saying the donors must have been developing Alzheimer鈥檚 as well as CJD (Nature, ).

David Irwin of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia 鈥� whose work suggests Alzheimer鈥檚 can鈥檛 be transmitted 鈥� is doubtful. Collinge couldn鈥檛 analyse samples of the growth hormone to see if it contains the molecules.

鈥淭here remains no definitive evidence that clinical manifestations of Alzheimer鈥檚 can be transmitted between humans,鈥� says Irwin.

聯There is no definitive evidence that Alzheimer鈥檚 can be transmitted between humans聰

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淎lzheimer鈥檚 find鈥�