|
|
Mad Cow Disease Overview
Home » Diseases » Mad Cow Disease » Mad Cow Disease OverviewMad Cow Disease is a scary thing, and yet it's hard to know what's true and what's fiction when people are giving you "facts" about it. What is it really? How do you get it? What will it do to you if you do get it? Is it something that you should worry about? How do you prevent from getting it? These are all normal questions that people ask when hearing news accounts about "infected agents" and "Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy" (Mad Cow Disease).
Here are some of the questions that you need answered to help you sort through all of the information about Mad Cow Disease and how it can affect you:
• What is Mad Cow Disease? Mad Cow Disease is actually called Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, and it is caused by prions (proteins) crossing between species - such as from a cow to humans. Unfortunately, normal, uninfected prions occur naturally in the human body, so the body does not recognize them as something necessary to fight. And since they are proteins, which are not alive, they can't be killed.
• How do you get Mad Cow Disease? As a human, you actually can't get Mad Cow - it is disease in cows. The disease that people are really talking about when they refer to a development of Mad Cow Disease in humans is a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). The variant is notated as vCJD.
• What are the symptoms of Mad Cow Disease? When vCJD begins to infect the body, it starts killing neurons in the brain and several symptoms appear, all neurological, since CJD is a disease of the brain. Some of the symptoms include insomnia, depression, changes in behavior and attitude, confusion and memory problems, sight, loss of coordination, dementia, myoclonus, the loss of all mental and physical capabilities, a coma, and death.
• Is there any way to prevent Mad Cow Disease? Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, the disease that results from the exposure of a human to Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Mad Cow Disease), is very extremely rare. However, there are some steps that you can take to make sure that you are not exposed to a greater risk of vCJD.
Related Mad Cow Disease Articles
- Mad Cow Disease Overview
- What is Mad Cow Disease?
- How do you get Mad Cow Disease?
- What are the symptoms of Mad Cow Disease?
- Is there any way to prevent Mad Cow Disease?