By hearing the topic you would be wondering that I am talking about Agent 47 but the thing that you would be reading about, is not less than Agent 47. So let’s see who these ‘Secret agents of Death’ are.
So when I talk about the ‘Secret agents of death’, by this I mean an infectious agent- Prion. You will be flabbergasted to hear that Prion is a type of protein that can trigger normal proteins in the brain to fold abnormally. Prion diseases can affect both humans and animals and are sometimes spread to humans by infected meat products and the most horrifying thing is that that prions are not alive (and contain no DNA), they can survive being boiled, being treated with disinfectants, and can still infect other brains years after they were transferred to a scalpel or other tool. The most common form of prion disease that affects humans is Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). So a question arises that how dangerous are these prions. Accordingly if we see the abnormal folding in the brain causes memory impairment, personality changes, holes in the brain, and difficulties with movement.
In mammals, prions reproduce by recruiting the normal, cellular isoform of the prion protein (PrPC) and stimulating its conversion into the disease-causing isoform (PrPSc). As you read that prions can survive if they are boiled or if they are treated with disinfectants, so you would be wondering that can prions be destroyed? Answer to this question is, yes they can be destroyed by a sustained heat for several hours at extremely high temperatures (900°F and above) will reliably destroy a prion but this does not mean that prions can be cured, they can’t be cured but certain medicines may help slow their progress. Medical management focuses on keeping people with these diseases as safe and comfortable as possible, despite progressive and debilitating symptoms.
The credit of discovering prions goes to Dr. Stanley B. Prusiner who is an American neurologist and biochemist.
So if we talk about that how much time it takes a prion to kill you, At first, most people are confused and have memory problems, then muscles begin to jerk involuntarily and coordination is lost. Most people die within 4 months to 2 years. The longest survivor of prion is Jonathan Simms. Jonathan Simms who suffered variant CJD - the human form of mad cow disease - has died, 10 years after he first became ill. Jonathan Simms (a talented footballer) confounded doctors by becoming one of the world's longest survivors of the brain disease.
So I hope by now you all have known that how dangerous are these prions and what kind of diseases they can causes you. I know some of you will get scared after reading this article but don’t worry my friend because prions are fairly rare diseases and moreover there are some good prions also. Some researchers have found nearly 50 helpful prions in yeast and comparable proteins in humans, suggesting that this dreaded protein type can boost survival and plays a role in evolution.
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