Guest guest Posted June 15, 2001 Report Share Posted June 15, 2001 Parsons and any one else interested: I just recently read an article about the fatal familial insomnia(it seems to be a genetic thing in a family in Italy) in the New York Times Magazine, I believe, perhaps it was another source, but if anyone just happens to be interested in reading the article, I can hunt down the article and fax it to ya. > And another for good measure... Steve > > ----------- > Dear Cecil: > > I know about bacteria. I know about viruses, sort of. But what are prions? > I've been reading about them in connection with mad cow disease, and I > gather that they're some new kind of germ, and that someone got a Nobel > Prize for discovering them. But that's about it. Maybe I'm just getting old, > Cecil, but what the hell--bacteria and viruses weren't good enough? We need > some new kind of high-tech bug that sounds like you make it by pelting muons > with bosons in the Tevatron? --Mike Robe, Germany > > Dear Mike: > > You're not the only one to wonder about prions (pronounced PREE- ons). The > term was coined by Dr. Stanley Prusiner, who received the Nobel Prize in > 1997 for discovering the tiny pathogens. Prion is supposedly an acronym for > " PROteinaceous INfectious particle. " Obvious problem: this gives us proins, > not prions. I'm not saying this necessarily tells you anything about > Prusiner, but you can see where some would have their doubts. > > (To be fair, some say Prusiner switched the letters for the sake of euphony, > though in one's bitter heart one suspects he did it to produce a cool, > scientific-sounding term like muon, boson, etc. Prusiner was traveling when > I called, so the question remains unresolved.) > > You may ask: How come I never heard of prions before now? Probably because, > until the appearance of mad cow disease, you never heard of the diseases > prions are believed to cause. These include Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, > Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker disease, and fatal familial insomnia, all of > which are fairly rare, thank God. Symptoms of fatal familial insomnia > include: four months of progressive insomnia accompanied by panic attacks > and bizarre phobias; five months of hallucinations, panic, agitation, and > sweating; three months of total insomnia, weight loss, and possibly > incontinence; six months of dementia and total insomnia; and finally " sudden > death after becoming mute. " Say, you don't look at all well. Are you getting > enough sleep? > > Almost forgot: kuru. That's the disease in New Guinea believed to be > transmitted by infected brain tissue consumed during cannibalistic funeral > rites. > > Back to mad cow disease, properly known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy > (BSE)--literally, " disease in which cow brains deteriorate and wind up > looking like a sponge. " As of December 2000, approximately 180,000 cases had > been confirmed in Great Britain, plus about 1,300 elsewhere, mostly on the > continent but also in other parts of the world, including (eep) Canada. In > every case the cattle had been imported from the UK. The number of new cases > has dropped sharply since the peak in 1992-'93. " The outbreak may have > resulted from the feeding of scrapie-containing sheep meat-and-bone meal to > cattle, " the Centers for Disease Control inform us. (Scrapie is a disease of > sheep.) " There is a strong evidence and general agreement that the outbreak > was amplified by feeding rendered bovine meat-and-bone meal to young > calves. " You getting the message here? I don't care how hungry you are. > Cannibalism is bad. > > The reason people are so worried about BSE, apart from their concern over > the British cattle industry's economic prospects, is that BSE has been > linked to outbreaks of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), a > progressive neurological disorder in which the human brain deteriorates and > winds up looking like a sponge. I'm getting so absent-minded I almost forgot > to mention this. OMIGOD, AM I GETTING CREUTZFELDT-JAKOB DISEASE? THAT MEANS > THE ALIEN SPACE COMMANDERS IN MY TOMATO PLANTS WILL FLY UP MY NOSTRILS AND > INVADE MY BRAIN! Wait, those are the symptoms of fatal familial insomnia, > not vCJD. Never mind. > > Prusiner's Nobel Prize-winning breakthrough was that BSE and similar brain > diseases, collectively known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies > (TSEs), are caused by the pathological transformation of a protein on the > surface of certain brain cells. As one writer describes it, the protein gets > folded the wrong way and becomes a prion, which then causes adjacent > proteins to fold the wrong way, which messes up still other proteins--I'm > envisioning Ice-9 from Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle--and before you know it, your > brain looks like something you could use to scrub out the septic tank. > > Now to the skeptics. Although the existence of prions is generally accepted > by scientists, there are a few holdouts, notably idis, a > professor of neuropathology at Yale. As she points out, there are dozens of > strains of TSEs, so there must be something more complicated than a simple > binary fold/no-fold prion-type mechanism at work. Something like a virus. So > far she hasn't discovered it, but you understand her beef (so to speak). > Other disease processes--bacterial and viral infections, tumors, genetic > disorders--have broad applicability and manifest themselves in numerous > ailments great and small. Prions are mostly involved in certain fairly rare > (except for BSE) diseases of the brain. More importantly, prions reproduce > without benefit of DNA or RNA, the only such instance in all of biology. It > offends one's sense of aesthetics. (For a good summary of the case against > prions, see slate.msn.com/HeyWait/97-10-10/ HeyWait.asp.) Whatever the truth > of the matter, it's not just cattle breeders in Britain who hope they get it > sorted out soon. > > --CECIL ADAMS > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 19, 2004 Report Share Posted May 19, 2004 HI Group, I need your opinion on a new supplement that my chiropractor gave me to take in the morning. This is the first time I have been to this chiropractor and I really liked him. The supplement is for my adrenals. I do not wish to offend him but, I am afraid of prions. The last thing I need is Mad Cow Disease. The supplement is called, DSF Formula , made by Nutri-West out of WY. The ingredients are as follows: Ingredients: Each Tablet Supplies: Adrenal 25mg, Thymus 70mg, Spleen 20mg, Stomach 10mg, Parotid 80mg, (all bovine source). Vitamin C 175mg, Vitamin B-2 15mg, Vitamin B-6 10mg, Niacinamide 15mg, Pantothenic Acid (D-Calcium Pantothenate) 105mg, Grape Seed Extract 1mg, Lemon Bioflavonoids 225mg, L-Tyrosine 175mg, Magnesium (as oxide) 45mg, Zinc (as chelate) 5mg, Chromium (as chelate) 50mcg, Potassium (as chelate) 2mg, Chlorella 50mg. Please let me know what you all think. Sydney Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 15, 2004 Report Share Posted November 15, 2004 Do the organic acids like lactic and acetic denature prions? Darrell Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 12, 2005 Report Share Posted April 12, 2005 In a message dated 4/12/05 7:10:20 AM Mountain Daylight Time, SSRI medications writes: > You might find info on madcow disease by researching prions. > These things are so deadly that any instrument used anywhere near them has to be destroyed. They cannot be destroyed by any means. That's why all the Mad Cow carcasses were burned and buried in England -- that was the best they could do. " Blind Reason " a novel of pharmaceutical intrigue Think your antidepressant is safe? Think again. It's Unsafe At Any Dose Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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