What Causes Alzheimer’s Disease?

The brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease collect particles of protein that are not expelled from their bodies for one reason or another. These protein particles start sticking together and forming plaques in the brain, which smother and kill healthy brain cells. This damage starts in the hippocampus— the region of the brain responsible for memory.

Much like the plaque on our teeth, these proteins create cavities inside the brain as more cells are killed. Dead brain cells then contribute to the avalanche of plaque building up, which causes the neurodegeneration to spread throughout the brain.

These protein deposits are called tau and beta-amyloid. In Parkinson’s disease, a similar form of protein known as alpha synuclein builds up in the region of the brain that controls motor skills. In other words, the primary difference between Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease is where the protein formation starts.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is the most aggressive form of neurodegenerative disease. It behaves in a similar fashion, but at a much faster pace.

In CJD victims, we know that these protein deposits include a deadly form of protein called a prion, which are the foundation of a deadly spectrum called prion disease. There is no species barrier. There is no evidence to suggest that infectious prions are not involved with all forms of neurodegenerative disease. Prions are in the bodily fluids of victims, including blood, saliva, mucus, milk, urine and feces. All tissue is infectious. Prion contamination is impossible to sterilize. An infected cup or spoon is infected forever.

Stanley Prusiner earned the Nobel Prize in physiology in 1996 for his pioneering work on prions. Unfortunately, his earth-shattering science has been ignored and a global health epidemic has been unleashed. He claims that Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, ALS and Huntington disease are part of the prion spectrum. Autism could be a prion mutation, too. Or the variation in symptoms and life expectancy could be a function of a neurodevelopmental disease versus a neurodegenerative one.

Prion disease also is known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE). The operative word is “transmissible.” According to research from Duke University, caregivers of someone with dementia are six times more likely to develop the condition themselves. The TSE epidemic represents an environmental nightmare that threatens every mammal on Earth.

“There is now real evidence of the potential transmissibility of Alzheimer’s,” says Thomas Wiesniewski M.D. a prion and Alzheimer’s researcher at New York University School of Medicine. “In fact, this ability to transmit an abnormal conformation is probably a universal property of amyloid-forming proteins.”

TSEs include Alzheimer’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, mad cow disease and chronic wasting disease in deer. Few, if any, mammals are immune. There is no cure and there is no species barrier.

Prions are such a formidable threat that the U.S. government enacted the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, which included a provision to halt prion research in all but two laboratories. It classified prions as select agents that pose an extreme risk to food, water and health systems. Unfortunately, the Centers For Disease Control quietly took prions off the list about two years ago because the classification threatened to criminalize multi-billion dollar industries, including the biosolids and wastewater reclamation industries.

Prions are not alive. They migrate, mutate and multiply. Neutralizing them requires isolation and containment, much like the protocol for radiation. Unfortunately, many industries are creating new prion pathways and prion victims every day because of misinformation and mismanagement. These reckless practices are contributing to the global Alzheimer’s epidemic. It’s become an industrial disease for millions of people.

The concept of Pandora’s box is no longer a fantasy. It’s now a nightmare. Prions are unstoppable. They are fueling the global epidemic in neurodegenerative disease now.

Fortunately, Mother Nature offers hope. Beneficial foods can help us fend off these killer plaques and purge damaging molecules from our bodies. Nutrition offers the only real hope in treating the symptoms of the disease and maximizing the quality of life for those caught in its grasp. We also must understand which foods to avoid.

More than 50 million people in the world have neurodegenerative disease today. Some countries are impacted more than others (see Risk by Country). There are many more questions than answers regarding Alzheimer’s disease. However, if we connect the dots, it paints an ugly picture about an unstoppable pathogen associated with many neurological diseases.

Prions linger in the environment, homes, hospitals, nursing homes, dental offices, restaurants and many other places infinitely. They migrate, mutate, multiply and kill with unparalleled efficiency. Prions defy all attempts at sterilization and inactivation. Victims often become infectious long before they appear sick.

Although there are many causes and pathways contributing to the prion disease epidemic, many pathways are being mismanaged around the globe. Via sewage, biosolids, and reclaimed sewage water, we’re recycling the prion pathogen that causes Alzheimer’s right back into our food and water. We’re dumping these killer proteins on crops, parks, golf courses, ski areas and school grounds. Rain and irrigation spread them throughout our communities and watersheds.

Since prions are in the bodily fluids of its victims, sewage mismanagement is a top concern. Sewage treatment plants can’t detect or stop prions. Just ask the U.S. EPA. Therefore, putting biosolids on parks, crops and golf courses is a very bad idea. Dumping sewage sludge from billions of people on land and at sea spreads the prion pathogen far and wide.

Based on these facts, water reuse (reclaimed wastewater) for drinking water is reckless. Using sewage sludge and biosolids on crops, grazing land, lawns and gardens is foolish and fraudulent. It’s been proven that plants grown in sewage sludge absorb prions and they become infectious.

Every sewage system in the world has been used by a person, if not millions, of people with Alzheimer’s disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Sewage systems have become prion incubators. Biosolids, water reuse and sludge disposal have made them prion distributors. It’s safe to say they are committing bio-terror with weapons of mass destruction. The contamination is permanent and spreading daily.

People can acquire deadly prion proteins in a variety of ways, including food, water, dental procedures, surgery, blood donations and more. Unfortunately, victims of prion disease spread the pathogen through their bodily fluids and cell tissue. Prions mutate, migrate and multiply with unparalleled efficiency.

Deadly prions are contagious and unstoppable. They are known to migrate, mutate, multiply and kill with incredible efficiency. When we connect the dots between all forms of prion disease in humans and other mammals, we see an explosive growth rate around the world.

Prions also are linked to post-traumatic stress disorder in combat veterans and in the brain damage of athletes, including football players who have suffered repeated concussions. The trauma appears to trigger normal prion proteins to convert into the lethal form. Inbreeding also could trigger prion mutations in healthy animals. Sheep breeders in the UK noticed strange behavior in such sheep several hundred years ago. At some point in history, those sick sheep became feed for healthy cattle and sheep. Such triggers and cascading events could explain the very first cases of prion disease. Then infectious pathways took the Pandora-like pathogen to far corners of the earth, including our food, air and water.

Although much more research must be done on Alzheimer’s disease, we know enough to demand reforms in many areas of public health.

Caregivers are at risk of infection as the unstoppable epidemic escalates. It’s essentially indistinguishable from the highly infectious Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). Doctors cannot distinguish between the two diseases and neither can you. The only real difference is that CJD appears to be a more aggressive mutation of the prion pathogen. Prions mutate as they move through the food chain, which puts animals at the top of the food chain, including humans, at greater risk. In fact, prions discharged from humans are much more voracious than those discharged from animals.

There are proven strategies to help avert neurodegenerative disease, including smart nutrition, exercise and prion aversion. There is not a cure for prion disease, but smart nutrition can ease the symptoms. Preview and order the eBook now to defend yourself and your family.

Gary Chandler is a prion expert. He is the CEO of Crossbow Communications, author of several books and producer of documentaries about health and environmental issues around the world. Chandler is connecting the dots to the global surge in neurodegenerative disease, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, chronic wasting disease and other forms of prion disease.