Alzheimer Scotland hits out at “sensationalist and irresponsible” media reports of medical study
Alzheimer Scotland has furiously hit back at newspaper reports which suggest Alzheimer’s disease is contagious.
A number of national newspapers carried headlines on Thursday suggesting people can "catch" the disease and that it is contagious following a study published in Nature journal.
But Alzheimer Scotland says, the study which was carried out by scientists in London, did not find any evidence to suggest that is the case.
The study, which examined the brains of eight people who had died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) after being accidently given contaminated human growth hormones when they were young, found the protein beta-amyloid – just one of many hallmark signs of Alzheimer’s disease – in six of the eight brains.
Alzheimer Scotland said newspapers which then linked medical procedures with Alzheimer’s disease were being “sensationalist and irresponsible”.
Alzheimer Scotland are deeply disappointed by the sensationalist and irresponsible nature of much of the coverage
“Some headlines have suggested that people can "catch" Alzheimer’s disease, that it is in some way contagious, or that it can be caught through medical or surgical procedures,” a spokesperson for the charity said.
“There is no evidence of this. Alzheimer Scotland is deeply disappointed by the sensationalist and irresponsible nature of much of the coverage.
“While this study is interesting, it is far too small to draw any conclusions.
"The injection of human growth hormone was discontinued in the United Kingdom in 1985, due to links withCreutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), which was the cause of death for all eight cases. Contrary to some reporting, no other surgical or medical procedures were examined in this study.
“Furthermore, other hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease, such as tau protein, were not found in any of the cases. Beta-amyloid protein deposits can occur in the brain as a part of aging and are not an automatic precursor for dementia symptoms.”
