Question:
In the presence of copper atoms in the brain, beta-amyloidcan act as an enzyme that generates free radicals in the form ofhydrogen peroxide. When concentrations of free radicals soar,zinc in the brain interacts with beta-amyloid and plaques result......The copper then can catalyze the formation of more freeradicals. Bush's team reports in the June NEURON. Whenthis happens, the initially protective plaques do in fact becomepart of the problem...

What's your opinions on this part of the SCIENCE NEWS, 30JUN01 ???

Answer: That prion disease, muchlike Alzheimers is a disease of plaque buildup. And prion diseaseis connected with copper and zinc and other metals.

One aspect of Prion disease is its multitude of variants. And itis this multi-variance that destroys the Prusiner protein onlytheory.

But I am not quite sure if Alzheimers also has multi-variationsas does prion disease.

Apparently metals are involved in a critical way in bothPrion and Alzheimers.

And although the above quote hints of a means of generatingmore plaque, a better generator would be that of a virusor bacteria or fungus. A microbial organism would alsooffer the best explanation for the multitude of variants inPrion disease. Does Alzheimers disease come in variantsand has anyone researched the differences or similaritiesbetween the Prion variants and the Alzheimers variants.Such a study focused on variants in the two diseasesmay yield clues as to the generators of both diseases.