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> THIS MESSAGE IS IN MIME FORMAT. Since your mail reader does not understand this format, some or all of this message may not be legible. --MS_Mac_OE_2969801915_1810636_MIME_Part Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit there is a disease called kuru that is thought to be caused by prion. If that may be what Carol was trying to learn about, I have a long article from which this was excerpted: The human prion diseases are more obscure. Kuru has been seen only among the Fore highlanders of Papua New Guinea. They call it the "laughing death." Vincent Zigas of the Australian Public Health Service and D. Carleton Gajdusek of the U.S. National Institutes of Health described it in 1957, noting that many highlanders became aUeicted with a strange, fatal disease marked by loss of coordination (ataxia) and often later by dementia. The affected individuals probably acquired kuru through ritual cannibalism: the Fore tribe reportedly honored the dead by eating their brains. The practice has since stopped, and kuru has virtually disappeared. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, in contrast, occurs worldwide and usually becomes evident as dementia. Most of the time it appears sporadically, striking one person in a million, typically around age 60. About 10 to 15 percent of cases are inherited, and a small number are, sadly, iatrogenic-spread inadvertently by the attempt to treat some other medical problem. Iatrogenic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease has apparently been transmitted by corneal transplantation, implantation of dura mater or electrodes in the brain, use of contaminated surgical instruments, and injection of growth hormone derived from human pituitaries (before recombinant growth hormone became available). The two remaining human disorders are Gerstmann-Str...ussler-Scheinker disease (which is manifest as ataxia and other signs of damage to the cerebellum) and fatal familial insomnia (in which dementia follows diUculty sleeping). Both these conditions are usually inherited and typically appear in midlife. Fatal familial insomnia was discovered only recently, by Elio Lugaresi and Rossella Medori of the University of Bologna and Pierluigi Gambetti of Case Western Reserve University. Ron Vetter 1936, PD dz 1984 [log in to unmask] http://www.ridgecrest.ca.us/~rfvetter ---------- >From: "J. R. Bruman" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >Carol Mcleod wrote: >> Do any of you know if there is anything new about the connection between >> Guam and the high incidence of a particular type of Parkinsons ? snip >Found it!! >Conrad C et al; Ann Neur 1997;41:277-281: (in CSR MAR 97) >Authors found a genetic marker associated with progressive >supranuclear palsy (PSP) but not with Alzheimer's or with >Parkinson-dementia complex of Guam (PDG). --MS_Mac_OE_2969801915_1810636_MIME_Part Content-type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Re: Parkinsons and Guam</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR=3D"#FFFFFF"> <FONT SIZE=3D"4">there is a disease called kuru that is thought to be caused = by prion. If that may be what Carol was trying to learn about, I have a lon= g article from which this was excerpted:<BR> </FONT>The human prion diseases are more obscure. Kuru has been seen only a= mong the Fore highlanders of Papua New Guinea. They call it the "laughi= ng death." Vincent Zigas of the Australian Public Health Service and D.= Carleton Gajdusek of the U.S. National Institutes of Health described it in= 1957, noting that many highlanders became aUeicted with a strange, fatal di= sease marked by loss of coordination (ataxia) and often later by dementia. T= he affected individuals probably acquired kuru through ritual cannibalism: t= he Fore tribe reportedly honored the dead by eating their brains. The practi= ce has since stopped, and kuru has virtually disappeared. <BR> Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, in contrast, occurs worldwide and usually become= s evident as dementia. Most of the time it appears sporadically, striking on= e person in a million, typically around age 60. About 10 to 15 percent of ca= ses are inherited, and a small number are, sadly, iatrogenic-spread inadvert= ently by the attempt to treat some other medical problem. Iatrogenic Creutzf= eldt-Jakob disease has apparently been transmitted by corneal transplantatio= n, implantation of dura mater or electrodes in the brain, use of contaminate= d surgical instruments, and injection of growth hormone derived from human p= ituitaries (before recombinant growth hormone became available). <BR> The two remaining human disorders are Gerstmann-Str...ussler-Scheinker dise= ase (which is manifest as ataxia and other signs of damage to the cerebellum= ) and fatal familial insomnia (in which dementia follows diUculty sleeping).= Both these conditions are usually inherited and typically appear in midlife= . Fatal familial insomnia was discovered only recently, by Elio Lugaresi and= Rossella Medori of the University of Bologna and Pierluigi Gambetti of Case= Western Reserve University.<BR> <BR> Ron Vetter 1936, PD dz 1984<BR> [log in to unmask]<BR> http://www.ridgecrest.ca.us/~rfvetter<BR> <FONT SIZE=3D"4"><BR> ----------<BR> >From: "J. R. Bruman" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:<BR= > >Carol Mcleod wrote:<BR> >> Do any of you know if there is anything new about the connection b= etween<BR> >> Guam and the high incidence of a particular type of Parkinsons ?<B= R> snip<BR> >Found it!!<BR> >Conrad C et al; Ann Neur 1997;41:277-281: (in CSR MAR 97)<BR> >Authors found a genetic marker associated with progressive<BR> >supranuclear palsy (PSP) but not with Alzheimer's or with<BR> >Parkinson-dementia complex of Guam (PDG).</FONT> </BODY> </HTML> --MS_Mac_OE_2969801915_1810636_MIME_Part--