Mad Cow Disease Humans

Mad Cow Disease Humans
Mad cow disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is a cattle disease that affects the central nervous system. This explains the reason why affected cows will always exhibit insane or erratic behavior. When humans eat contaminated beef of affected animals, the mad cow disease in humans in known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (nvCJD). People have reason enough to be concerned about contracting this disease because like all other types of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, this variant of mad cow disease in humans is a brain disorder that progressively becomes deadly over time.

Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is known as 'variant' because even though it is most prevalent among people of ages 50-75, it has affected younger people, as young as 18 years of age. It is believed that the causes of mad cow disease humans is not a bacteria or virus like in other diseases, rather, it is a protein agent known as prion. Prion has the ability to change normal forms of protein into infectious life threatening ones. This agent occurs in the nervous system tissues, hence meat that doesn't come from these tissues i.e. the spinal and brain tissue, is thought to be safe, although conclusive evidence is yet to be given.

Just like BSE, made cow disease in humans affects the brain hence the reason why it produces neurological symptoms, which may begin ingeniously with insomnia, confusion, depression, behavioral and personality changes, poor muscle coordination, memory loss, and poor eye sight. As mad cow disease humans progresses, the patient rapidly develops dementia and irregular and involuntary jerking motions known as myoclonus.

As the disease progresses to the final stages, the person tends to lose all physical and mental functions, slips into a coma and ultimately dies. The average course of the disease is normally a year. As of now, there is no cure for mad cow disease humans, nor is there a definitive medical test to diagnose the condition.

Note that mad cow disease in humans is transmitted to other humans through transplantation of the tissues infected or through cannibalism. Accordingly, blood donations and some human blood products are never accepted from individuals living in areas where cases of BSE have previously been diagnosed. Because the disease is quite rare, some doctors may not even think of diagnosing it, and might mistake the symptoms for other brain disorder such as Huntington or Alzheimer's.