Researchers report human growth hormone, prepared from human tissue prior to 1985, may have been contaminated with seeds of the amyloid beta protein. In a new study, researchers injected mice with the original c-hGH batches containing amyloid beta which seeded amyloid pathology, even decades after storage. Findings support the hypothesis that the Alzheimer's causing proteins can be transmitted to from contaminated materials.
While evidence suggests pathological proteins linked to the onset and progression of neurodegenerative disorders are capable of spreading from cell-to-cell within the brains of affected individuals, new research shows no evidence to support concerns that these abnormal disease proteins are “infectious” or transmitted from animals to humans or from one person to another.