Can Alzheimer’s disease be caused by the use of growth hormone treatments? Well, scientists from University College London (UCL) seem to think so. They uncovered eight cases of Alzheimer’s disease that the scientists believe to have arisen as a result of such medical treatments provided decades earlier.
Five of these people had symptoms of dementia, and either had already been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or would otherwise meet the diagnostic criteria for this condition; another person met the criteria for mild cognitive impairment. These people were between 38 and 55 years old – an unusually young age – when they started having neurological symptoms. Biomarker analyses supported the diagnoses of Alzheimer’s disease in two patients with the diagnosis, and were suggestive of Alzheimer’s in one other person; an autopsy analysis showed Alzheimer’s pathology in another patient.
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Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that gradually destroys memory and thinking skills, and eventually, the ability to carry out the simplest tasks. It is the most common cause of dementia in people over the age of 65.
Alzheimer’s disease is caused by the abnormal build-up of proteins in and around brain cells. These proteins form plaques and tangles that disrupt the communication between neurons and eventually lead to cell death.
The exact cause of Alzheimer’s disease is unknown. There is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease, but there are treatments that can help manage the symptoms and slow the progression of the disease. These treatments include medications, lifestyle changes, and cognitive therapy.
The people reviewed by the researchers had all been treated as children with a type of human growth hormone extracted from pituitary glands from deceased individuals (cadaver-derived human growth hormone or c-hGH). This was used to treat at least 1,848 people in the UK between 1959 and 1985, and used for various causes of short stature. It was withdrawn in 1985 after it was recognized that some c-hGH batches were contaminated with prions (infectious proteins) which had caused Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in some people. c-hGH was then replaced with synthetic growth hormone that did not carry the risk of transmitting CJD.
The lead author of the research, Professor John Collinge, Director of the UCL Institute of Prion Diseases and a consultant neurologist at UCLH, said: “There is no suggestion whatsoever that Alzheimer’s disease can be transmitted between individuals during activities of daily life or routine medical care. 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.”
“Importantly, our findings also suggest that Alzheimer’s and some other neurological conditions share similar disease processes to CJD, and this may have important implications for understanding and treating Alzheimer’s disease in the future,” he added.
