Mad cow disease may be misdiagnosed as dementia or Alzheimers

Colm Kelleher has authored a book about mad cow disease which manifests itself in humans as Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease or bovine spongiform encephalopathy. He believes that many deaths from Alzheimer’s and dementia may actually be misdiagnosed cases of BSE. He backs this statement up with research findings from Yale University and the University of Pittsburgh. He claims that 653 people died from Alzheimer’s in 1979 but in 2002, 58,785 people died from it. This increase in death cannot be solely attributed to an aging population or improved diagnosis. To further confuse the issue, symptoms of Alzheimer and BSE are similar and only an autopsy will rule out one of them. The symptoms start with mild forgetfulness and progresses to loss of motor coordination, seizures and complete amnesia. There have been over 150 recorded deaths from BSE in Europe and Asia. Testing of each animal is at this stage still to prohibitively expensive. A 6 year old boy in Chicago suffered from a sever stomachache after consuming beef at a barbeque. Within a week, the E. Coli (a strain of which is found in cattle faeces) had destroyed the boys internal organs and he died. The CDC shows that foodborne pathogens result in 76 million illness, 325,000 hospitalisations and 5,000 deaths in the US annually yet it receives much less concern from the public than BSE.

Source: summary of medical news story as reported by Las Vegas Mercury

Related Disease Topics:

• BSE
• Bovine spongiform encephalopathy
• Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease
• Dementia
• Alzheimers disease
• E. Coli infection

Related Symptom Topics:

• Mild forgetfulness
• Loss of motor coordination
• Seizures
• Complete amnesia
• Stomachache

Article Source Details

About: Mad cow disease may be misdiagnosed as dementia or Alzheimers

Date: 18 November 2004

Source: Las Vegas Mercury

Author: Newt Briggs

URL: http://www.lasvegasmercury.com/2004/MERC-Nov-18-Thu-2004/25267207.html

Related Medical Topics

This summary article refers to the following medical categories:

• Death from BSE
• Death from bovine spongiform encephalopathy
• Death from Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease
• Death from dementia
• Death from Alzheimers disease
• Death from E. Coli infection
• Cause of BSE
• Cause of bovine spongiform encephalopathy
• Cause of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease
• Cause of dementia
• Cause of Alzheimers disease
• Cause of E. Coli infection
• Misdiagnosis of BSE
• Misdiagnosis of bovine spongiform encephalopathy
• Misdiagnosis of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease
• Misdiagnosis of dementia
• Misdiagnosis of Alzheimers disease
• Misdiagnosis of E. Coli infection