The New Yorker was fond of hunting: he repeatedly shot squirrels and, as his family say, ate the meat of these animals. He did not disdain by-products, including animal brains.
It was this unusual food preference that caused the development of a rare disease - Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. This rare disease, affecting one in a million people every year, occurs when eating meat contaminated with prions (abnormally structured proteins). Most often, the disease develops when eating contaminated beef, that is, meat from animals infected with the so-called mad cow disease.
Eating such meat can provoke Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which is accompanied by progressive cognitive impairment, as well as impaired muscle function - people lose the ability to move independently, take care of themselves, breathe, speak, and eat. The disease progresses very quickly, and today medicine cannot offer any therapy except symptomatic.
In addition to the form of the disease associated with the consumption of contaminated meat, there is a hereditary form of the disease, as well as a sporadic form of the disease that occurs suddenly, without any obvious reason.
To confirm the diagnosis, the 61-year-old patient underwent an MRI procedure - the picture seen by the doctors fully corresponded to the disease. They were finally able to confirm the diagnosis after the death of the man and the subsequent autopsy.
