Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a very rare disorder of the brain that has received quite a lot of media attention since the 1990s. It is related to mad cow disease, and this disorder can be considered to be quite frightening because of its serious symptoms.
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History
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Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is named for the two men who discovered the disorder in the 1920s. They worked independently of one another, and both were treating patients who presented some very unusual symptoms. Although many of their findings are contrary to what we know understand about this disease, Creutzfeldt and Jakob provided the groundwork for learning more.
Identification
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Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is considered to be a form of human spongiform encephalitis; patients suffering from this disease have small holes that appear and spread within the brain. There are several forms of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD): sporadic, variant and familial. Sporadic and variant are the most common, while familial, as the name implies, is generally genetic in nature.
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Prevalence
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CJD in its three known forms is currently diagnosed at a rate of one per million people. It is typically found only in people 45 to 75 years old, while most diagnoses occur after the age of 65. The disease is believed to lie dormant for as many as 20 years before symptoms appear.
Symptoms
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The symptoms of CJD are quite severe and include dementia, memory loss, spastic movements, uncontrollable laughing and the degeneration of the human brain. Once symptoms present, death typically occurs within one year. The disease has no cure and is invariably fatal once progression begins.
Prevention/Solution
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Researchers are still trying to determine what actually causes CJD in humans, and not much is known about this disease and its transmission. However, there may be a link between eating the affected brain material of an animal with a similar disease, such as mad cow.
In Southern U.S. states, where regional diets may include the ingestion of squirrel brains, there has been an increased amount of people suffering from CJD. The same is also true in cases where the patient was known to ingest meat contaminated with brain matter, either from squirrels, elk, cattle or other animals that are susceptible to spongiform encephalitis.
Due to the nature of this disease, eating the brain of any animal or eating meat contaminated with brain material is highly discouraged.
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