Talk:Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease

Is it possible that this disorder is related to Huntington's Corea. The systoms are quite simliar. I have several family members that are dying from this disorder. It is only confined to one set of gene pool. It has been noted that the spouse that doesn't carry this defect watches their other spouse die and then watch their children; and if they were married at a very early age as in the old time of exceptable marriages ages these spouses also watched their grand children die as well .....

Probably not - Cretzfeldt-Jakob disease is caused by prions; as you noted, Huntington's is genetic. Both are neurodegenerative disorders, however, and some of the effects can be similar in two diseases with widely different causes. -- Sayeth 22:38, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

There has been some speculation that prion diseases are exacerbated by a faulty PrP gene. However, this is very, very rare and not linked to Huntington's disease in any way. -- FirstPrinciples 14:28, Oct 6, 2004 (UTC)

Huntington's and prion diseases, as well as things like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, are all linked in a way because they are all protein misfolding diseases, i.e. a protein changes shape and that altered shape seems to cause damage to the brain. The differences between them are in which protein changes shape and what causes that change. Huntington's is caused by a genetic mutation where a particular bit is repeated over and over. This isn't what causes prion diseases like CJD, it is something else that changes the protein's shape and usually there is no mutation at all. Prion diseases are also unique because the abnormal protein is infectious.--Purple 01:08, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Prions section

May I suggest the following?

• Remove the portion of the section titled Prions that duplicates the content of Prion.
• Retain and expand the portions on pathology and epidemology, but retitle them appropriately.

Your comments are welcome. Walter Siegmund 02:56, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Nature claims 5 errors

Nature disputes the accuracy of this article; see http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/multimedia/438900a_m1.html and Wikipedia:External_peer_review#Nature. We're hoping they will provide a list of the alleged errors soon. —Steven G. Johnson 01:52, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Errors ID'd by Nature, to correct

The results of what exactly Nature suggested should be corrected is out... italicize each bullet point once you make the correction. -- user:zanimum

• The hereditary forms are always associated with mutations of the PrP gene. The sporadic forms are by definition not associated with mutations.
• The risk from HGH was only removed when this was medication was withdrawn in the USA in 1985.
• The original case from Jakob's papers have been re-examined and two were judged to have been suffering from CJD and at least two from other conditions. This did lead to confusion about definitions but it is wrong to state that the patients all had a different disorder.
• Although recent work has shown that PrPSc can be found with highly sensitive methods in some cases of sporadic CJD in muscle and spleen, the important point is that these tissues are negative using conventional tests in contrast to variant CJD in which LRS tissues are uniformly positive. This distinction is critically important for public health.
• The section on pentosan polysulphate gives an overly optimistic impression of the efficacy of this treatment.

Question

I have been reading a lot of material about nCJD being misdiagnosed as Alzheimers - supposedly indicating why cases of Alztheimers are doubling/tripling (?) recently. Can anyone provide points of view on either side of this aurgument ? Thanks