I recently found out about the so-called prion diseases, which are incurable and fatal diseases that affect (a euphemism, the real word is destroy) the CNS and cause a rapid deterioration of mental and physical abilities.
There are many prion diseases, the two most famous are probably the mad cow disease (non-human mammals), and the Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD) (for human mammals). Both are 100% fatal, and *no one* is known to have survived longer than 2.5 years after a CJD diagnosis. That’s the kind of stuff you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.
Why are these diseases so deadly? I read that it has to do with abnormal proteins but that was way over my head.
EDIT : I have another question, can prion diseases be rightly called the most dangerous diseases known to man ?
Thanks;
In: Biology
Prion is a protein in your brain that’s doing messy things. It’s really small and there are many other proteins in the brain, so it’s extremely hard to get out without butchering the brain.
They’re also quite rare, so there isn’t too much research done on curing them, other than preventing you getting it in the first place, such as inspection of beef and other meat
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