Alzheimer’s passed to patients from corpses

Human growth hormone given to 1,800 children over 40 years now known to have been contaminated

ALZHEIMER’S disease was passed to patients given hormones extracted from corpses, scientists have shown for the first time.

Five people are believed to have developed the condition after they were treated with a human growth hormone which inadvertently contained the seeds of dementia.

The tainted hormone was given to more than 1,800 children of short stature in the UK between 1959 and 1995 before being withdrawn when it was shown to trigger Creutzfeldt-jakob disease (CJD).

Now, scientists at University College London (UCL) have found that the same batch responsible for cases of CJD also appears to have triggered Alzheimer’s in some patients. The youngest developed dementia symptoms at just 38 years old.

Professor John Collinge, director of the UCL Institute of Prion Diseases and a consultant neurologist at UCLH, lead author of the research, said: “We are not suggesting for a moment you can catch Alzheimer’s disease. You can’t catch it by being a carer or living with a husband or wife with the disease.

“The patients we have described were given a specific and long-discontinued medical treatment which involved injecting patients with material now known to have been contaminated with disease-related proteins.

“However, the recognition of transmission in these rare situations should lead us to review measures to prevent accidental transmission via other medical or surgical procedures, in order to prevent such cases occurring in future.”

Amyloid-beta proteins found in hormone British scientists initially stumbled across the discovery while studying the brains of eight people who died of CJD after being injected with a human growth hormone.

Unexpectedly, four of the patients had huge levels of amyloid beta protein– a sticky deposit which forms among brain cells and stops them communicating with each other properly in Alzheimer’s patients.

Although none had developed dementia, scientists say it is likely theywould have, had they lived longer.

Researchers then tracked down the original growth hormone which had been stored by the Department of Health, and found it did indeed contain the misfolded amyloid-beta proteins implicated in Alzheimer’s.

When they injected the banned hormone into the brains of mice, the animals began to develop the signs of neurodegenerative disease.

Now, scientists have discovered that five people treated with the hormone have developed the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease despite being aged just 38 to 55. None were at genetic risk for the condition.

First author Dr Gargi Banerjee (UCL Institute of Prion Diseases) said: “We have found that it is possible for amyloid-beta pathology to be transmitted and contribute to the development of Alzheimer’s disease.

“This transmission occurred following treatment with a now obsolete form of growth hormone, and involved repeated treatments with contaminated material, often over several years.

“There is no indication that Alzheimer’s disease can be acquired from close contact, or during the provision of routine care.”

Amyloid proteins come in different strains. It is thought that the misfolded amyloid proteins clump together in “stacks” which grow over time until they get so long that they snap,creating new “seeds”.

Each seed continues to grow, until this unfettered accumulation of amyloid in the brain starts to kill brain cells.

The research was published in the journal Nature Medicine.