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Five people treated with tainted human growth hormone found to have developed symptoms of the disease despite being aged just 38 to 55

Childhood treatment with contaminated human growth hormone may cause the disease years later | Science & technology

Early-onset dementia symptoms in five adults may be connected to a now-discontinued human growth hormone medical treatment that they received decades ago as children, a new study suggests.

The findings may have important implications for understanding and treating the disease, researchers say.

The findings support a controversial hypothesis that proteins related to the neurodegenerative disease can be ‘seeded’ in the brain through material taken from cadavers. The findings support a controversial hypothesis that proteins related to the neurodegenerative disease can be ‘seeded’ in the brain through material taken from cadavers.

The hormone known as c-hGH was used to treat at least 1,848 people of short stature in the UK between 1959 and 1985.

The findings may have important implications for understanding and treating the disease, researchers say.

Five of eight British children who received human growth hormone from the pituitary glands of deceased donors went on to develop early-onset Alzheimer's disease many decades later, researchers report.

The findings may have important implications for understanding and treating Alzheimer’s disease, researchers say.

Hormones, taken from dead donors between 1959 and 1985, were used to treat people with growth conditions in the UK before synthetic growth hormones were introduced.