Specialists have reported a number of cases in which Alzheimer’s disease developed as a result of medical intervention that occurred long before the patients showed the first signs of the disease. Thus, the disease developed as a result of transmission of a pathogenic form of the relevant proteins.
The research paper looked at eight patients who underwent cadaveric growth hormone therapy during childhood. The subjects ranged in age from 38 to 55 years old. Five of them had symptoms of dementia and had already been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Another patient was matched for the disease by a constellation of cognitive impairments.