Mad Cow-Like Prion Disease - Human-to-Human Transmission

What else has sneaked on past at this time?

Heres one:

www.bbc.co.uk...

The rightly dreaded Keystone pipe.Its a done deal now.
People are capitalising on the horror.

a reply to: Silcone Synapse

Not quite a done deal, but coming. ...Just so you know, prion news gets buried. Islamic gunmen in France? Another story. Key point: We are never informed about anything important unless and until there's a strategy in place. A couple tidbits to ponder in this light:

New tests screen for lethal prion disease

Urine and nasal swabs can reveal silent carriers of infectious proteins

New noninvasive tests can detect Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and may reveal hidden carriers of the lethal neurological disorder, scientists report in the Aug. 7 New England Journal of Medicine.

Current tests rely on imperfect brain scans or painful spinal taps to find signs of neuronal damage caused by the disease, but these methods miss up to 17 percent of cases. In contrast, the two new tests use urine or nasal swabs to directly confirm whether a person harbors the infectious prion proteins that cause the disorder, with 93 and 97 percent accuracy, respectively.

Most Alzheimer's patients are women.

Almost two-thirds of Americans with Alzheimer’s disease are women.

Did you know that women represent 72% of Canadians living with Alzheimer’s disease?

Hmmm. What comes next I wonder? ...Does Stepford have care homes?




: puz :

a reply to: soficrow

Wonderful....NOT!!!

So what, if anything can the average person do to limit exposure??
Or is it just one big crap shoot....more of a not If, but When event??

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

The thing about prions -like all epigenetic effects- is that their changes are reversible. The key is to remove the environmental trigger, and allow/help the body to get back to "normal." The real problem is that many of these environmental triggers result from pervasive or permanent contaminations - so sometimes, it may be more beneficial (to the species) to let the body work through its adaptation process.

...Meanwhile, except for the "blame the victim" part, Public Health advice is good: Live clean and sober, stay active mentally, physically and socially.

At this point, most of us probably inherited some prions - a combination of bad luck, bad environment and bad epigenetic inheritance is at fault.

Two-thirds of adult cancers largely ‘down to bad luck’ rather than genes

...Two-thirds of adult cancers, say the researchers from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center in the United States, are caused by random mutation in the tissue cells during the ordinary process of stem cell division. In the other third, our genetic inheritance and lifestyles are the main factors.

But again - even inherited prions and other epigenetic changes can be reversed. Not that it's guaranteed, but it IS worth a try.


REVERSING INFECTIOUS and INHERITED PRION DISEASE

Prions change our gene expression (DNA expression), but it's possible to change it back.

According to the science of epigenetics (the study of how environmental factors outside of DNA influence changes in gene expression), stem cells and even DNA can be altered through magnetic fields, heart coherence, positive mental states and intention.

One study:

[url=http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/17/how-exercise-changes-our-dna/?_r=0]How Exercise Changes Our DNA

....Exercise, a new study finds, changes the shape and functioning of our genes, an important stop on the way to improved health and fitness.

....Enter epigenetics, a process by which the operation of genes is changed, but not the DNA itself. Epigenetic changes occur on the outside of the gene, mainly through a process called methylation. In methylation, clusters of atoms, called methyl groups, attach to the outside of a gene like microscopic mollusks and make the gene more or less able to receive and respond to biochemical signals from the body.

Scientists know that methylation patterns change in response to lifestyle. Eating certain diets or being exposed to pollutants, for instance, can change methylation patterns on some of the genes in our DNA and affect what proteins those genes express. Depending on which genes are involved, it may also affect our health and risk for disease.

...“Through endurance training — a lifestyle change that is easily available for most people and doesn’t cost much money,” Ms. Lindholm said, “we can induce changes that affect how we use our genes and, through that, get healthier and more functional muscles that ultimately improve our quality of life.”

.....Personally, I'd prefer to change my environment, avoid chemicals, exercise daily, and get my will in gear rather than rely on vaccines and chemical drugs. Long story short, I think the Ancients knew exactly what they were talking about - and dealing with.

It's long been known that prions are infectious - that was the source of "protein-only" controversy. But the openly-voiced idea of human-to-human transmission is new.

Here's a quick review. There are 3 ways to get a prion disease (and hypothetically at least, all can be reversed):

1. Sporadic (form inside body/cells as response to internal OR external environmental change);

2. Inherited (epigenetically NOT genetically); and

3. Acquired (infection via ingestion, medical devices, physical contact through the skin, and ?).

2003. Prion diseases are unique transmissible neurodegenerative diseases that have diverse phenotypes and can be familial, sporadic, or acquired by infection.

….The heterogeneity of prion diseases is compounded by several factors. First, prion diseases are unique among conformational diseases as being infectious. At variance with other neurodegenerative diseases, prion diseases include three forms: sporadic, familial and acquired by infection (Table 1). Second, according to the infection portal of entry or the origin of the exogenous infectious prion, the form of prion diseases acquired by infection may display phenotypes that are quite different. ….The large spectrum of phenotypic variability has made the recognition of prion diseases difficult.

Have to add food for thought. We have read where large numbers of Deer population (those tested anyway) have shown positive for CJD.

Interestingly enough, the local food banks in cooperation with The Salvation Army have been pushing deer meat to the thousands of poor coming in looking for supplemental food.

The numbers that were allowed this year were unrecorded in truth and the meat supply began showing up months before the official hunting season began. In fact Springfield mo even passed an new ordinance stating that bow hunting for deer would be permitted In The City Limits!

I held in the back of my mind the reason behind this massive culling of local deer, but once it started showing up at the local food pantry's as commodities I was like Uh oh... and my Ct senses began choking out my rational sensibilities.

It is one thing to infect the poor and stage a pharmaceutical/medical windfall, but with this new information I can see how easily this could become pandemic throughout the entire population via human to human transmission.

I am very interested in learning more about the proposed vaccination trials and the move forward. Where does the FDA and pals stand on this?

My Brother was trying to explain to me how diversification of derivatives has begun to show the same patterns as pre- subprime mortgage crisis. And that the USgov has promised against what they previously said after the last fall, that they would again back them!

I said ok, how do we cash in? What are these derivatives and how do we invest? (Not knowing if I even have the names right for some of you brainiacs) and he said we don't know, that is private. I asked even if it directly affects everything? Yes.

Where is this headed? How far reaching will it be allowed to go before all the comforts of the big pharma step in to big brother us into forced vaccinations and compliance based out of fear and hopelessness?

The perfect trap and if they have a target group it would most certainly be the bottom most feeders.

Scary.

In this democratic society, Capitalism will upturn its own Republic to ring in mission accomplished socialism and genocide.

One more question Sophi, if a single prion can contaminate the planet in time, what will injecting it in the form of vaccine do to us?

I wonder now when we will see deer meat on the menus at public schools?

We know that anything it comes in contact with then becomes irreversibly infected.

Prions are scary things, and are more prevalent than we thought.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there has never been a proven case of human to human transmission of vCJD. There have been less than 250 cases of vCJD ever documented, all from countries with endemic BSE in the cattle. Transplants --corneal, kidney, liver, etc.--would be the most likely way to get it outside of what we eat.

Avoid hot dogs/weiners/baloney/sausage, and use care when skinning and butchering your venison.

originally posted by: antar
One more question Sophi, if a single prion can contaminate the planet in time, what will injecting it in the form of vaccine do to us?

The vaccine manufacturing process creates prions as well as distributing those already present in the animal-derived ingredients used to make vaccines. Point being, there are all kinds of different prions (and prion strains) everywhere. Already. As far as vaccines go, it seems fairly clear that the current chronic disease pandemic started back around WW2 with the first mass vaccinations.

RE: Infecting the nation's poor by distributing contaminated venison at Food Banks to create an infected population for vaccine testing.

"They" have done worse.

...anything (prions) comes in contact with then becomes irreversibly infected.

No. Prions are an epigenetic mechanism - which means the infection is reversible. There is no treatment, true - but prions are an environmental adaptation so simply changing the environment back to 'normal' will promote the protein's change back to its 'normal' form.

a reply to: Tusks

Yes, prions are prevalent - they're an epigenetic mechanism triggered by environmental change. One of the reasons diagnosis is limited is lack of testing capability. Another reason is the (re)definition of prion disease to include only the late stage of infection, when the infection has reached the brain, Fact is though, prions are found throughout the body - such prion infections and symptoms are just not called prion disease.

As you say, eating contaminated food is the most common route of infection. Just think about it - how long does it take for a prion to reach the brain? Where does it go - and stop - on its way to the brain? Do you really think it doesn't infect other cells and proteins during that 20-30 year journey?

a reply to: soficrow

What confounds me about prions are that they are not alive so they cannot be killed, but they are not dead either, so fighting them with our current understanding, our paradigm of understanding that which is neither alive nor dead is the greatest challenge in controlling them.

a reply to: soficrow

Mate you just sent me down a rabbit hole...

a reply to: PhoenixFreeman

Fear is a mind-killer. Get over it, accept reality and start thinking again. Truth -our awareness of truth- is the only way out. Follow the path to a new paradigm.

originally posted by: soficrow

No. Prions are an epigenetic mechanism - which means the infection is reversible.

You keep saying this, but once an organism is contaminated by a prion, that prion *by itself* causes other proteins to misfold. It's not genetically regulated.

Your cells produce chaperone proteins to block this but you can certainly have a prion that you don't have chaperones for. Thus, CJD and the like progress to an inevitable conclusion once contracted, no matter how you eat or if you live in a perfect bubble.

originally posted by: Bedlam

originally posted by: soficrow

No. Prions are an epigenetic mechanism - which means the infection is reversible.

You keep saying this, but once an organism is contaminated by a prion, that prion *by itself* causes other proteins to misfold. It's not genetically regulated.

Your cells produce chaperone proteins to block this but you can certainly have a prion that you don't have chaperones for. Thus, CJD and the like progress to an inevitable conclusion once contracted, no matter how you eat or if you live in a perfect bubble.

Prions are much more complicated than you describe - and they are an epigenetic mechanism - which means they sorta regulate genetic expression by "taking over" protein production. So you're right - prions are NOT genetically regulate, they do the regulating. [Note: Prions are 1 of 3 known epigenetic effects/mechanisms, the other 2 being turning genes off and turning genes on.]

Yes, prions can cause other proteins to misfold on contact but that's not the end of the story. If you'rte really interested in prion mysteries, check out these articles and their links for one rather cool conundrum:


Cellular memory of stressful situations
NOTE: Prions are responsible for inheritable cellular memory.

Prion-Like Protein Controls Long-term Memories

originally posted by: soficrow
Prions are much more complicated than you describe - and they are an epigenetic mechanism - which means they sorta regulate genetic expression by "taking over" protein production.

They regulate it alright - they misfold proteins into useless forms on contact. If your cells can't dispose of it, it's lethal, regulates them all the way to zero.

Your first link isn't saying that prions are epigenetic. It's describing a feedback loop between a heat shock protein and a nuclear protein that is moved into the cytoplasm to buffer the heat shock protein. If either the HSP or DICER fail to work correctly, you get prion formation, because HSPs are generically also prion chaperones. Prions aren't causing the epigenetic changes, they're the result of an HSP chaperone regulation failure that causes both the epigenetic change and the prion formation.

The second link's interesting, but if you're reading the papers themselves you'll find CPEB is always called "amyloid-like" or "prion-like", it's not a beta amyloid at all, but has somewhat similar properties. One of which, one would hope, is that it doesn't endlessly proliferate.

a reply to: Bedlam


Would you also assert that the egg came before the chicken? ; )

Sperm Prions: A Mechanism of Epigenetic Inheritance

There is growing evidence that environmental exposures to the father can affect the phenotype of his offspring and in some cases these effects can be adaptive. ...

Epigenetics in the Extreme: Prions and the Inheritance of Environmentally Acquired Traits

Prions are an unusual form of epigenetics: Their stable inheritance and complex phenotypes come about through protein folding rather than nucleic acid–associated changes. With intimate ties to protein homeostasis and a remarkable sensitivity to stress, prions are a robust mechanism that links environmental extremes with the acquisition and inheritance of new traits.

Prions are classifiable as epigenetic regulators because they are able to modify gene expression through protein interactions, as opposed to first receiving “instructions” provided by nucleic acids.

Although prions aren’t thought of as a traditional epigenetic mechanism, … If you consider epigenetics to mean “…all mechanisms for the inheritance of biological traits that do not involve alterations to the coding sequence of DNA”, then prions certainly fit the bill; they just get the job done by altering protein folding instead of transcription or translation. Because these changes are robust, self-replicating and heritable, prions can be considered both an epigenetic process, and a way for traits to be passed from the environment to an organism

Prions are a common mechanism for phenotypic inheritance in wild yeasts

The self-templating conformations of yeast prion proteins act as epigenetic elements of inheritance. Yeast prions might provide a mechanism for generating heritable phenotypic diversity that promotes survival in fluctuating environments and the evolution of new traits. However, this hypothesis is highly controversial. Prions that create new traits have not been found in wild strains, leading to the perception that they are rare ‘diseases’ of laboratory cultivation. Here we biochemically test approximately 700 wild strains of Saccharomyces for [PSI+] or [MOT3+], and find these prions in many. They conferred diverse phenotypes that were frequently beneficial under selective conditions. Simple meiotic re-assortment of the variation harboured within a strain readily fixed one such trait, making it robust and prion-independent. Finally, we genetically screened for unknown prion elements. Fully one-third of wild strains harboured them. These, too, created diverse, often beneficial phenotypes. Thus, prions broadly govern heritable traits in nature, in a manner that could profoundly expand adaptive opportunities.

originally posted by: soficrow
a reply to: Bedlam


Would you also assert that the egg came before the chicken? ; )

None of these are amyloid prions, though. Although it's interesting that they're there. You also have a bevy of prion-correction proteins called HSPs that also suggests it's not the sort of thing you want around all the time, either.

Also, a lot of the examples are the sort 'the organism was damaged /stressed, and when it divided there were still stress compensating proteins in, so the two daughter cells inherited the behaviors etc' which doesn't seem like epigenetics as much as the cell hadn't finished up repair when it divided.

Looking over the lit, it seems like these heat stress responses (which often form prions because the proteins thermally change configuration) are tied into mechanisms that cause cell mutation, probably to create a lot of options for adaptation to whatever the stress was. Seems more mutagenic than epigenetic.

a reply to: Bedlam

Seems more mutagenic than epigenetic.

Erm. No. The DNA is not changed, only the protein, so it's not mutagenic. Yes, proteins misfold with exposure to heat or other temperature change, radiation, chemicals, etc., and the body normally just turfs them without much ado. But sometimes, the misfolded proteins become prions. Yes, the word "prion" was redefined to refer only misfolding of the newly-named "prion protein" in the brain and resultant amyloid structure - but fact is, any protein can misfold in myriad ways and at least hypothetically, become infectious. fyi - much prion formation occurs in the body and is not introduced from external sources.

RE: damage/stress/repair - Epigenetic mechanisms (including prions) kick in as response to environmental change. It's not so much "repair" as it is adaptation. ...Think of prions and other epigenetic responses as the genetic rapid response DEW line.