Re: Fwd: Blood/VA Hospitals

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 5/1/99 3:46:44 PM Eastern Daylight Time, DHertha@...

writes:

<< From: DHertha@...

Hi gang,

I have a question...it may be nothing, but in a large number of patients

diagnosed with Lyme disease, symptoms related to Alzheimer disease have

emerged later on(as high as 40%). The cause is inconclusive. Lyme disease is

caused by an organism called Borrelia burgdorferi which is found mainly in

deer ticks and is injected into the individual while the tick is feeding. I

asked a neurologist at N.I.H. if the Alzheimer like dementia symptoms were

caused by the Borrelia organism or something else in the tick like a yeast

or

fungi? There has been no conclusion. >>

I forgot about the " yeast " theory and the " autoimmune " theory. There was

research done by Easton, University of Chicago Medical Center

(jeaston@...) and published in the December 9, 1997 issue

of the Proceedings of the national Academy of Sciences - " Discovery Links New

Form of Inheritance in Yeast To " Mad-Cow " Type Diseases " . It is too long to

re-type but it started as saying:

" Researchers from the Institute at the University of Chicago

have discovered that a chaperone protein from yeast, which helps proteins to

change their shapes, controls a new, protein-only form of inheritance called

a yeast prion. They have now isolated the chaperone and prion proteins and

shown that they can produce such a shape changes right in the test tube. The

chaperone is very specific for certain target proteins and ignores most other

proteins in the cell.

Remarkably, the same yeast chaperone reacts with prion proteins from mammals.

Prions are responsible for " mad cow " disease in cattle, scrapie in sheep and

Creutzfeldt-Jakob and other fatal ailments in humans. Prions have amazed

scientists by their apparent ability to cause disease by a new protein-only

mechanism. When prion proteins fold into a different shape they produce

indigestible tangles which can kill or damage nerve cells. This change in

shape spreads to other proteins and other cells, killing the animal and

producing new infectious material.

Surprisingly, the same yeast chaperone also interact with beta-amyloids,

fibrous peptides that forms the destructive tangles which are believed to

cause Alzheimer's disease...... "

Maybe this is the " protein X " that Prusiner refers to.............Pat

[Guest guest]

Dave:

Interesting that you should mention Lyme disease in relation to CJD. A good

friend of ours died last month from probable CJD. The autopsy results aren't

back yet, but his wife kept going back to the fact that he had contracted

Lyme disease 3-5 years ago. Apparently, some of the symptoms are similar,

but I believe he was tested for Lyme disease when he first started having

dementia symptoms. He was 61 when he died. I will let you know when I hear

from his wife as to the autopsy results. Scarey thing is, he was at my dad's

visitation and funeral. He did not touch my dad, but my mom still thinks he

could have somehow contracted CJD from Dad. He became symptomatic 6 months

after Dad's death.

Beverly G.

[Guest guest]

Pat,

Thanks for the info...Pruisner also said on CNN in October 1997 when

interviewed about being nominated for the Nobel Prize that if a treatment

worked on Mad cow disease (or TSE's) that it might work on Alzheimers and

Parkinsons disease.

Tahnks

Dave

[Guest guest]

Pat;

From May 1996 until y husband died in 1998 he was constanly hospitalized

with pneuonia. He had conjestive heart failure any times prior to that.

Sometimes dialysis did not pull off all fluid he retained, therefore it

would gather in his lungs. His heart was weak and did not " pump " well,

so that was another factor to him gathering so uch fluid. His blood

pressure would " bottom out " if they pulled more fluid off than his body

could stand. Sometimes this ended up with hi in the hospital. Ihave no

record as to how many times he was hospitalized, but I never knew if or

whenhe wouold come back from dialysis. Or if I would have to rush to

ther hospital.

For approximately 9 months they inceased his protein in his diet. It

was doubled. The actual dialysis treatment wul decrease the protein in

the blood, so he had to add to it to keep hi alive.

His bloodwork was great at the time he was diagnosed with CJD, except

his calcium level was elevated. He seemed to be coping well considering

all he had gone through. Thenin 11 days he was gone. I KNOW that he

had CJD much longer than we knew. He had syptoms for quite some tiem.

Sorry, didn't mean to take up so much time.

Betty