You may have seen recent headlines asserting that dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are surgically-caused infections that can spread to others. You won’t get Alzheimer’s disease from hugging or holding your grandmother’s hand, so relax. You can learn more about Alzheimer’s by reading this article.
Overview Of Alzheimer’s
There is currently no known cause for the disorder. However, a number of pieces of data indicate that environmental, lifestyle-related, and genetic factors are also at play. How these elements interact and contribute to Alzheimer’s pathology is the main topic of several ongoing studies.
Alzheimer’s patients typically have shrinking brain tissue. This occurs as a result of tangles being formed from the abnormal twisting of tau protein strands. Additionally, plaques are produced by the erratic folding of the amyloid-beta peptides.
Both of these result in synaptic degeneration and ultimately in the death of brain cells. The symptoms of Alzheimer’s are reflected in these cellular modifications.
Among them are cognitive decline, problems remembering facts from daily life or making decisions, irrational behavior, and a number of other psychological alterations.
Research About How Alzheimer’s Disease Spreads
Even though Alzheimer’s disease cannot be contracted from another person, some mouse studies seem to suggest that it might have some infectious elements, possibly connected to prions (proteins required for the function of brain cells).
When prion proteins fold abnormally in prion diseases, such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, they spread the infection to other healthy prions in the body, killing brain cells and leading to dementia.
Despite the fact that unhealthy prions can spread within a person, there is almost no chance that the disease will strike a person’s close friends, family, or caregivers.
Retrospective Study With Humans
Researchers tested human growth hormones given to more than 6,100 people who had previously received injections and discovered that unknowingly at the time, they contained trace amounts of the tau and beta-amyloid proteins found in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.
Since then, these individuals have been watched to see if they have developed Alzheimer’s disease. Although the majority of the participants are still fairly young for the typical onset of dementia, none of the participants have yet developed Alzheimer’s disease.
Preclinical And Clinical Studies
Researchers induced the onset of Alzheimer’s disease in a group of mice as part of a preclinical study. They used the mice to produce amyloid-beta protein. They administered it via injection to the brains of mice in good health.
Later, amyloid-beta plaques were found in the brains of healthy mice, and eventually, these mice developed memory loss resembling that of the mice with Alzheimer’s disease.
Additionally, the researchers tried delivering infected amyloid-beta proteins through the oral, intranasal, intravenous, and intraocular routes. None of these demonstrated the appearance of Alzheimer’s symptoms in normal mice.
In a different study, healthy mice that had received brain tissue transplants from infected mice started to exhibit symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers also conducted a significant retrospective clinical study involving people who had received human growth hormone injections that unintentionally contained trace amounts of amyloid-beta and “tau” proteins.
But none of these people had any signs of Alzheimer’s disease. This might also be because the majority of these people were still quite young at the time of the study. More observation is necessary.
What Does This Research Mean
The experts emphasize that this does not imply that Alzheimer’s disease is contagious. neither the test subjects nor the mice grew Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers do contend, though, that it’s possible that those who were affected eventually developed Alzheimer’s.
To be certain about any risk, we still don’t fully understand how the amyloid protein might spread between people. Modern surgical techniques are strict about cleaning and getting rid of any instruments that might get contaminated.
To determine whether this is sufficient, more study is required. The risk of spreading Alzheimer’s disease currently appears to be very low, but all surgical procedures carry some degree of risk.
Dr. James Pickett, the Alzheimer’s Society’s Head of Research, clarified the study’s findings.
‘Amyloid protein is just one factor in Alzheimer’s disease, which has been well-known for a very long time.
While some of the individuals who underwent this procedure had amyloid protein-related changes in their brains, Alzheimer’s disease itself was not present in these individuals, according to the research.
The technique used in this study was discontinued over 35 years ago, and more recent methods do not carry the same risk of exposure.
There is still no proof that Alzheimer’s disease is spread by other people.
Does Alzheimer’s Spread By Contact
Because of the preclinical and clinical evidence, it is impossible to completely rule out the possibility that Alzheimer’s could be transmitted during brain surgeries or injections. The fact that a possibility hasn’t been ruled out does not necessarily mean it’s true.
Based on the currently available preclinical data, transmissible characteristics of Alzheimer’s could be a possibility, similar to other risk factors like age, gender, familial history, and genetic triggers. But a clinical demonstration of this is required.
The disease is not contagious, despite the fact that the precise pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s is unknown. Both public and private physical contact cannot spread it.
Final Words
While there are still many aspects of Alzheimer’s disease that are unknown to us, we can say with absolute certainty that being around people who have the disease, giving them hugs, or taking care of them won’t make you get it.
Alzheimer’s disease and dementia are not communicable diseases. We can’t contract them from other people, but they are brought on by brain disorders.
