How to Prevent Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a fatal illness that is rare but has been making headlines in recent years because of its link to Mad Cow disease. It always affects the brain and presents with dementia, loss of memory, sudden hallucinations, and eventual seizures. As the brain tissues deteriorate they take on a sponge-like quality. Death is inevitable within a few short months or two years at the most. Learning how to prevent Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is easy but actually implementing the steps that it takes to avoid contracting this illness may be a bit harder to accomplish.

Things You'll Need

• Internet access

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Instructions

How to Prevent Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease

• 1

  Avoid ingestion of meat tainted with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Use the Internet and research the source of your meats. The best meats to buy are those which are naturally produced, have been fed an exclusively vegetarian diet, and are examined for illness prior to slaughter. The most common offenders are commercially kept livestock that may have been fed a diet supplemented with organic waste products from already slaughtered animals and where there is little oversight at the time of slaughter. So called downer cows—cows too sick or weak to move—that enter the food supply are at an elevated risk of carrying BSE and thus infecting humans with the components of what will present as Creutzfeldt-Jakob.

• 2

  Do not eat beef from the United Kingdom where the majority of cases related to BSE appear to have begun. This warning also applies to dishes prepared with UK derived processed meats and meat byproducts.

• 3

  Stay away from organ meats, especially brain. In some parts of the country this is a delicacy but if you are serious about preventing a case of Creutzfeldt-Jakob, you are wise to stay away from the brain tissue of any animal.

• 4

  Undergo genetic testing prior to having children. A small percentage of Creutzfeldt-Jakob cases show that the sufferers actually inherited the predisposition for the disease. The presentation due to genetic predisposition cannot be prevented, but if potential parents choose to be tested prior to conception, those carrying the mutated gene may choose not to procreate. While genetic testing is open to everyone, it is especially urgent for those whose families have a history of dementia, sudden deaths, or any ailment that may affect the brain. Since Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is sometimes misdiagnosed and no autopsy ordered to correct the diagnosis, families may not actually realize that this trait is running in their bloodlines.

• 5

  Request a complete check on organs donated to you. The disease may be in the tissues of the carriers but will not actually turn symptomatic until years—sometimes decades—after exposure. Organ transplants are a rare venue of transmission, but to prevent Creutzfeldt-Jakob it is useful to make this inquiry.

• 6

  Ask—before receiving a blood donation—if the blood has been checked for abnormalities or if it comes from an organization that has banned donors from the United Kingdom and other related areas known to have been affected with the earliest outbreaks of BSE derived Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

• 7

  Discuss with your surgeon the use of single-use instruments if you undergo brain surgery. In the past there have been instances of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease transmission from surgical instruments that were used in the autopsy or surgery involving the brain of a person infected with the disease. Not all of the currently available forms of sterilization have been shown to eliminate 100% of the affected Creutzfeldt-Jakob matter from the instruments.