Possibility Of Treating Brain-Wasting Mad Cow Disease

Possibility Of Treating Brain-Wasting Mad Cow Disease

www.newswise.com

…researchers report that they have found several chemical compounds… that have powerful effects against brain-destroying prion infections in mice, opening the door to potential treatments for human prion diseases.

…Prion diseases …affect both humans and animals. …There are no treatments.

Prion diseases in animals have been known to jump to the human population.

…a prion disease known as chronic wasting disease (CWD) …(in) North America… so far doesn’t seem transmissible to humans

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
w ww.4-traders.com
www.mad-cow.org
www.news-medical.net
www.wtrf.com

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
SCI/TECH: Mad Cow Madness
'Lifeless' Prion Proteins Are 'Capable of Evolution'
Mad Cow Disease Agent Can Infect Via the Air
SCI/TECH: "Mad Cow" Disease Uses Immune System to Spread in Body

Interestingly, one of the drugs is an antidepressant and the other treats schizophrenia. Does that mean something, do ya think?

The Mad Cow Madness went away after the Texas cattlemen killed Oprah Winfrey's Mad Cow Special on Food Safety.

But a whole lot of money is spent on a whole lot of research trying to deal with these so-called "rare" diseases.

Why?

Well, a whole lot of industrial activities cause proteins to misfold, and create infectious prions. Then the infectious prions get into our soil and water, and spread around - to animals and people, and maybe other phylla and kingdoms too. We drink and eat them, and so do other animals, and we seem to pass them back and forth to each other.

Looks like prions are the underlying cause of most "modern" diseases of civilization from cancer to diabetes to high cholesterol and heart disease. And more. Fact is, "protein misfolding disorders" cause a pile of fibrotic and other amyloid diseases.

Turns out prions mutate and adapt - and evolve to infect new and different cells - so obviously, there's way more than just 2 or 5 prion diseases.

And - shades of Contagion - Prion Diseases are Airborne.

So - great that maybe someday there might be a treatment, if not a cure. But prevention is better than response. Just not profitable.





Note: Prions also hitchhike on viruses, so I sure hope they get on top of this one soon - even if H1N1 swine flu pandemic didn't kill many people, I hate to think what the human population is going to look like 30 years from now.


www.newswise.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

There has always been a struggle to prevent industrialization from considering human health an 'externality' and it is a struggle which humans are losing. if they have not already lost.

The science behind our modern "chemical" living paradigm has never been easy to observe. Protection of business via "trade secrets" and "process patents" and the like have made it very difficult to challenge a 'healthy' revenue stream (pardon the pun). In fact, the revenue seems by far more important and useful to those entrusted with the welfare of the people, than the people themselves.

How this came to be, or continues to be is a topic for another forum, of course, but it bears noting that we have been aware of the problem for many decades. Personally, I have always suspected that the order-of-magnitude increase in autism-like illnesses among our newborns are strikingly coincidental with the spread of our "chemical" lifestyle.

The immense growth of the pharmacological industries stands as a testament to our commitment to cope with the existence of the problem" rather than the prevention of it's cause.

Great thread S&F!

Did the government release that one too ? We have AIDS, HIV, Cancer; there is no way a cow's disease can pass onto a human. I'm so sick of this, I might just check out of this world. (Not suicide, just move off the grid and into a cabin with the Nomad hillbillies and vamps 'round here) I can't take this anymore.

If not it's Alien virus or something because there is no way in hell. Infected meat used to give you salmonella, Ecoli or you just threw up for a few hours. Now, now this ? Your brain slowly decays away while you're alive ?
Oh god help us. God Help Us All.

This is great news s&f. I dont consider myself a hypochondriac but i do have this fear of prions especially from eating meat infected with it. Its the long 30+year incubation period and the horrible debilitating effects it has on people.

But also how they would say that you cant kill or destroy prions, plus the lack of knowledge on them how they arent considered alive but yet display some living functions live evolving.

I do think prion diseases will be more widespread in the future and am always thrilled to see advances in treatment, prevention and understanding of prions.

Thanks for making my day, ha

A gallon of milk goes up from $1.50 to $4.00 after mad cow disease. Okay, I can understand supply and demand, but what about after we got rid of the majority of it? Milk stayed at $4.00/gallon. It's even more expensive now, and we're not suffering from an epidemic of MCD.

Just like when oil companies raised the price of oil BECAUSE OF hurricane Katrina, and kept it there long after.

They'll come up with anything or use anything to make more money. Mad cow disease is a bunch of malarkey. I'm going to make a fat juicy hamburger now, and wash it all down with a tall glass of whole milk.

Hey, what ever happened to H1N1? I lived right in the epicenter of it in Fresh Meadows. I didn't get the h1n1 flu shot. I never got H1N1, and I went to Francis Lewis HS at the time (which was THE epicenter). They said people were going to die left and right, and that EVERYONE needed to get vaccinated.

In the words of a few good men, C.R.E.A.M.

reply to post by Maxmars

The immense growth of the pharmacological industries stands as a testament to our commitment to cope with the existence of the problem" rather than the prevention of it's cause.

You said it.

...and thanks Maxmars.

And for those who have not had their paranoia and hypochondria fix for the day -

Don't forget that exposure to stainless steel seems to actually create prions, as well as transport them - and any kind of surgery is linked to the appearance of prion disease 10 to 20 years later. Kinda like eating meat.

Prion adsorption to stainless steel is promoted by nickel and molybdenum

The fact that nickel and molybdenum in steel alloys increased the binding affinity, and bound infectivity, of PrPSc is an important issue to consider in the manufacture of surgical instruments and abattoir tools.

Also see:
Adsorption of prion and tissue proteins to surgical stainless steel surfaces

Surgery Linked to Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease

…with a few exceptions, the risk of having contracted the sporadic form of CJD manifests itself at least 20 years after having undergone an operation.

…We might, therefore, ask ourselves if other types of motor neuron diseases can be transmitted through surgery and be latent for decades, such as those where risk factors, particularly physical professions and activities or certain sporting activities, for example, which are more likely to lead to surgery, have already been indicated.

…the most conclusive pattern that the study presents, … is that the onset of CJD occurs approximately 10 years after an operation on the retina with reused equipment.

Originally posted by soficrow

Don't forget that exposure to stainless steel seems to actually create prions, as well as transport them - and any kind of surgery is linked to the appearance of prion disease 10 to 20 years later. Kinda like eating meat.

Prion adsorption to stainless steel is promoted by nickel and molybdenum

The fact that nickel and molybdenum in steel alloys increased the binding affinity, and bound infectivity, of PrPSc is an important issue to consider in the manufacture of surgical instruments and abattoir tools.

Wait are you saying that prions can be transmitted from one infected person to another via the use of stainless steel surgery equipment? So these tough buggers the prions survive an cling to the steel through all the washing.

But just to be clear you are saying the reuse of stainless steel, not the use of disposable steel needles for insulin or steroids or donating blood etc?

I mean stainless steel is not said to create prions right, just be a great carrier for them. Just want to be clear on that.

reply to post by Desolate Cancer

Wait are you saying that prions can be transmitted from one infected person to another via the use of stainless steel surgery equipment? So these tough buggers the prions survive an cling to the steel through all the washing.

But just to be clear you are saying the reuse of stainless steel, not the use of disposable steel needles for insulin or steroids or donating blood etc?

I mean stainless steel is not said to create prions right, just be a great carrier for them. Just want to be clear on that.

Early research seemed to suggest that proteins exposed to stainless steel could become prions. The current idea is that stainless steel attracts and binds already created prions.

Secretary of Agriculture Veneman has declared that "the possibility CWD from deer and elk could cause disease in humans or in domestic livestock...is an emergency." We believe metal in soil is an environmental reservoir of infectious prion protein.

The fact is, molecular relationships in our world are far more complicated than can be described in terms of simple cause-and-effect reactions. Another fact is, stainless steel is not a "natural" alloy and therefor, quite conceivably could have "unnatural" effects.

There's no limit to how complicated things can get, on account of one thing always leading to another.

~ E. B. White

reply to post by soficrow


I hope they get the cure fast - I was in England and ate meat during the scare 25 odd years ago.

I haven't had any problems yet but I am not allowed to donate blood. Its a shame because I constantly see the ads around the place saying the Blood Banks are crying out for more. I am a universal donor yet they don't want my blood :/

reply to post by Cecilofs


Meat might be the least of our problems - and it's all a bit of a joke. Which might explain why the cattlemen's associations are able to block regulation so effectively. A few more points about prion diseases:

1. Prion diseases …can be sporadic (spontaneous), familial (genetic/inherited) or acquired (transmitted by infection).

2. Virtually any protein can misfold and become infectious, given "suitable" destabilizing conditions.

Protein misfolding and aggregation: new examples in medicine and biology of the dark side of the protein world

…even the toxic effects of protein aggregates, mainly in their pre-fibrillar organization, result from common structural features rather than from specific sequences of side chains. These data lead to hypothesize that every polypeptide chain, in itself, possesses a previously unsuspected hidden dark side leading it to transform into a generic toxin to cells in the presence of suitable destabilizing conditions. This new view of protein biology underscores the key importance, in protein evolution, of the negative selection against molecules with significant tendency to aggregate as well as, in biological evolution, of the development of the complex molecular machineries aimed at hindering the appearance of misfolded proteins and their toxic early aggregates.

These data also suggest that, in addition to the well-known amyloidoses, a number of degenerative diseases whose molecular basis are presently unknown might be determined by the intra- or extracellular deposition of aggregates of presently unsuspected proteins. …

3. However, the only disease-causing misfolded protein currently recognized as a "prion" is the misfolded form of the human prion protein (PrP). PrP is a product of the human prion protein gene (PRNP) located to chromosome 20 (20p12-ter). Mutations and polymorphisms in the PRNP are associated with prion disease. Genetic prion diseases are inherited in an autosomal dominant trait, examination of the penetrance is restricted to mutation E200K (59-89%). Mutations can be substitutions or insertions. Genetic prion diseases are classified according to the clinicopathological phenotype …

4. The only sites officially acknowledged as susceptible to infection by prions are the brain and nervous system: the abnormal prion protein …aggregates mostly in the brain causing degeneration and disease.

5. Only five prion diseases are currently acknowledged as prion diseases: kuru, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker syndrome (GSS), fatal insomnia (FI), and variant CJD (vCJD).

The prion diseases.

The prion diseases are a family of rare [tsk] neurodegenerative [tsk, tsk] disorders that result from the accumulation of a misfolded isoform of the prion protein (PrP), a normal constituent of the neuronal membrane. Five subtypes constitute the known human prion diseases; kuru, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker syndrome (GSS), fatal insomnia (FI), and variant CJD (vCJD). …

6. Other diseases linked to infectious misfolded proteins are just called "misfolded protein disorders" - or named according their symptoms or after the guy who discovered them. …Anything but a "prion disease." Which they are.

7. Prions abound in our Brave New molecularly altered world - they are everywhere.

Everytime I hear about this I think about my former county legislator Maxine Postal who died of CJD in 2004, she was a great woman who worked hard for the community and Long Island. www.nytimes.com...

Hopefully one day this will be curable.

Originally posted by ChrisF231
Everytime I hear about this I think about my former county legislator Maxine Postal who died of CJD in 2004, she was a great woman who worked hard for the community and Long Island. www.nytimes.com...

Hopefully one day this will be curable.

I am truly sorry about Maxine Postal - and everyone who is still alive and suffering chronic debilitation from prion-caused diseases.

...But I don't agree that looking for a "cure" is the right approach. We're MUCH more likely to "succeed" (and survive as a species) if we focus on prevention and try to clean up our world. ...Our bodies are designed to handle a few intermittent prion assaults, but not the constant bombardment we have created.