Posted on 11/03/2005 10:44:47 PM PST by neverdem
Sheep mammaries shown to contain agents of fatal brain disease.
The inflamed mammary glands of sheep have been found to contain protein particles that cause scrapie, a sickness similar to mad cow disease. This suggests that the suspect proteins, called prions, may also be present in the milk of infected animals.
If prions exist in the milk of cows infected with both an inflammatory illness and mad cow disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), this raises concerns for human health. Consumption of prion-contaminated meat from cows with BSE is believed to cause the fatal variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in people; so might contaminated milk.
Adriano Aguzzi, the lead researcher on the study, has not detected prions in milk itself, because it is difficult to analyse for the abnormal proteins. But he says he expects to find them.
"It is unlikely that the prions are not in the milk," says Aguzzi, a pathologist at the University of Zurich Hospital, Switzerland. "And the prospect is not a pleasant one."
Neil Cashman, a prion researcher at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, is worried too. People have looked for prions in the milk of cows with BSE and haven't found any, he says. "But they haven't looked in cows with mammary-gland infection and BSE."
"This raises very serious questions that need to be answered," concludes Cashman.
Inflamed in the brain
Prions are mainly found in the brain, spinal cord and immune system. Until recently, other body parts were thought to be relatively safe. But in a series of studies, Aguzzi's group has shown that prions can be present in other organs as well, provided that these organs are inflamed.
Earlier this year, his group found prions in inflamed pancreases, livers and kidneys. A study last month showed that the urine produced by inflamed kidneys in mice also contains prions.
All this has helped to solve the mystery of how wild herds of elk and deer, which are vegetarian, might manage to contract prion diseases from each other. And it prompted Aguzzi to look at mammary glands to see if they could carry prions too.
Viral culprit?
The researchers went to Sardinia, a Mediterranean island with more than a million sheep, and analysed 261 sheep that were genetically susceptible to scrapie. Of those, seven had scrapie, and four also had an infection of their mammary glands. All these four had prions in their mammary glands; the others did not. The study appears this week in Nature Medicine1.
The mammary-gland infections were caused by a virus called Maedi Visna. Aguzzi says that if this prion-virus combination is common, it may be a clue to how to fight the transmission of scrapie. "Maybe to eradicate scrapie you have to eradicate the virus first," Aguzzi says.
The prion concentration in the sheep's mammary glands is thousands of times lower than in the brain, says Aguzzi. This is probably good news, although it is not known how many prions it takes to cause vCJD in humans.
References doi:10.1038/news051031-7
Ligios C., et al. Nature Medicine, 11. 1137 - 1138 (2005).
Awe christ. Now we gotta watch MILK??? Does it NEVER end???
Just damn.
Sometimes, Your Nails Can Bite You Back
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list. Anyone can post any unrelated link as they see fit.
I'm beginning to wonder if all these animal product scares are the covert work of animal rights groups! I mean REALLY! How long has the human race been eating animals ( and milk)? Why haven't we all died yet?!
Because:
A)Our ancestors didn't live long enough for these to manifest
B)What the Nannies consider "safe" is a whole higher standard than sane people use
C)There are so many more of us, using things from so many more hell holes
D)Our ancestors didn't pump overcrowded animals full of chemicals to keep them "healthy" while fattening
E)Our ancestors usually knew what they were looking at when they bought whatever they or their neighbors hadn't raised.F)If they survived childhood, our ancestors had built up a pretty good set of immunities
G)"Other"
Buy organic in this case. It's worth the extra $.
The British experience shows with BSE that the longer we wait, the more expensive it can get to fix the problem. They ended up having to destroy millions of animals in their effort to eradicate the disease. I believe that waiting will only cost us more money than tackling the problem head-on now.
So - prions NOT detected in milk would be a more accurate title
I'm getting sick of this. There is a correlation between prions and scapie, but no causative evidence. The prion theory - like Global warming - is just one more piece of evidence-less superscience for the new Millenium.
Thanks for the ping.
And all the products milk is in...
"The inflamed mammary glands of sheep have been found to contain protein particles that cause scrapie, a sickness similar to mad cow disease. This suggests that the suspect proteins, called prions, may also be present in the milk of infected animals.
"If prions exist in the milk of cows infected with both an inflammatory illness and mad cow disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), this raises concerns for human health. Consumption of prion-contaminated meat from cows with BSE is believed to cause the fatal variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in people; so might contaminated milk.
"Adriano Aguzzi, the lead researcher on the study, has not detected prions in milk itself, because it is difficult to analyse for the abnormal proteins. But he says he expects to find them."
Enter Adriano Aguzzi into the PubMed search engine. You'll get 73 citations. If you make the entry in the standard format, i.e. Aguzzi A, you'll get 334 citations.
Something is happening with prion proteins that we don't understand yet. Lately, I'm more interested in Bastian's spiroplasma hypothesis.
Check out this thread.
SHEESH......................
It's hard to know what to eat anymore. That's why sometimes I just nuke whatever I am about to eat until it steams and hope for the best. (I am exaggerating a bit here.)LOL!
None of us are going to get out of this alive, so I figure what the hey!!!!!!!!
But there are some things it just makes sense to stay away from... Like those mystery meat deli's or some Chinese buffets. Once my son told me he ate some sushi that was on sale in chinatown because it was a day old or expired and I freaked out! He's gotten ill from eating at a local Thai place as well. Just a few things like that to stay away from... LOL
I agree with all of that.....I was thinking more along the lines of some of these food scares - like eggs are bad for you, no they're good for you, etc.
I am very picky about my sushi and the Chinese buffets I go to. Many years ago, as favor to a friend (and a few extra bucks in my pocket) I waitressed at lunch at her Thai restaurant for a couple of months. This woman was so meticulous about hygiene and cleanliness that it bordered on obsessive, especially when she experimented with a buffet for dinner on weekends........I use that experience to base my judgement about eating from ANY buffet.
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