'You Can Catch Alzheimer’s': Really?

'You Can Catch Alzheimer’s': Really?

'You Can Catch Alzheimer's': Really?

The researchers also can’t prove that the beta amyloid came from the growth hormone treatments.

Here’s what researcher John Collinge, a neurologist and head of the department of neurodegenerative disease at University College London, told reporters at a press conference Wednesday:

“This is an observational study. We’re simply describing what we see in these patients and trying to explain that,” he said. “It doesn’t prove that it was the growth hormone injections that caused their Alzheimer’s pathology.”

Collinge noted that there are still archived samples of the growth hormone in question. He’s been in discussions with Britain’s Department of Health to run tests on those samples for beta amyloid. That would go a long way toward supporting his theory.

It’s worth noting that a study by U.S. researchers published in 2013 found no evidence of an increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease in a database of more than 6,000 people known to have received the human tissue-derived growth hormone treatments.

And what about claims in the news that blood transfusions and surgical procedures might be risky, since they could, in theory, pass beta-amyloid plaques from one patient to another?

There’s no evidence of that, says Lary Walker, PhD, a neurologist at Emory University in Atlanta who wrote an editorial on the study.

“There have been a few studies that have looked at blood transfusions, and in people with a history of blood transfusions is there a higher risk for Alzheimer’s disease, and the answer is no,” Walker says.

There’s no evidence that dental procedures raise the risk, either.

“I think there’s no reason the average person should be concerned about this,” he says.

Instead, he says the study raises an interesting question that deserves more exploration.

The study authors agree.

“I think it does call for further research to be done,” Collinge says.