|
Home |
The Internet Corner for Books, Poems and everything! |
|||
|
Writer's Block Corner |
||||
| - -The Next Generation In Publishing - - | ||||
 |
 |
 |
||
| Fiction Books Non-fiction Books Short Stories Poetry Internet & Business Related Books Accessories |
||||
|
NaturalHealthNewsletters.com provides one of the most complete collections of
Free Newsletters for Natural Health and Alternative Medicine on the internet.
You can receive Free articles, book reviews, Recipes and more on topics ranging
from Nutrition, Fitness to Herbal Remedies and Holistic Medicine The Ideal place
to go to learn how to improve your health. |
||||
|
This article was originally written for a paranormal magazine called The Paranormal Journal, it became known as The Underground Files covering ghosts, ufos, cryptozoology, and government conspiracies amongst others. I no longer write for the magazine and it is no longer in existence. Cannibalism Linked to Mad Cow Disease Cannibalism in ancient times may have caused epidemics of brain destroying diseases like Kuru and Creutzfeld Jacob disease, a team of British researchers suggest. Those two diseases and the human form of mad cows disease are believed to be caused by prions, an abnormal protein missing nucleic acid that can cause proteins to clump in the brain. The disease can be spread by eating flesh contaminated with prions. Some people have gene mutations that protect them from those illnesses. The research team led by John Collinge of University College in London, reported in Friday’s issue of the journal Science that the protective genes, called polymorphisms, are mutant versions of prion protein gene and show signs of having spread through the population through natural selection. “What we’re showing here is evidence that selection for these polymorphisms has been very wide spread or happened very early on in the evolution of modern humans, before human beings spread all over the planet,” Collinge said in a statement. “We can’t say which of those it is; but the obvious implication is that prion disease has provided the selection pressure.” Suggesting that cannibalism could have spread the diseases, increasing pressure to develop protective genes, the study cites the Fore people of Papua New Guinea, who were devastated by an epidemic of prion disease Kuru between 1920 and 1950. It was there practice at mortuary feasts to consume diseased relatives until cannibalism was banned in the 1950s. Collinge studied 30 women that had participated in these feasts and still living, and found 23 had the genetic variation that protects against Kuru. It’s the same genetic variation that helps protect against Creutzfeld Jacob disease, the study noted and the human form of mad cow disease is known as new variant Creutzfeld Jacob disease. “There is extensive anthropological evidence that cannibalism is not just a rarity that happened in New Guinea,” Collinge said. Other evidence of prehistoric cannibalism includes cuts and bruising marks on Neanderthal bones and biochemical analysis of human faeces. Giuseppe Legname, a prion disease researcher at University of California, San Francisco, called the paper intriguing but said he would like to see data from a larger population sample. “We know – that some polymorphisms make people resistant to prion diseases,” he said. “But we need to learn more before we can drawer any conclusions.” As far as cannibalism goes, he added, “that’s something interesting. We don’t have much information about prehistoric times and what were our ancestors’ habits.” Cannibalism Linked to Mad Cow Disease written by Bill Barber |
||||
 |
||||
 |
||||
|
|
||||
|
BACK TO Poetry OR Short Stories OR Articles |
||||
|
Home Our Aims Bookcase Book Shop |
||||