Medical implications Kuru is a type of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) caused by prions that are found in humans. Human prion diseases come in sporadic, genetic and infectious forms. Kuru was the first infectious human prion disease discovered. It spread through the Fore people of Papua New Guinea, among whom relatives consumed the bodies of the deceased to return the "life force" of the deceased to the hamlet. Kuru was 8 to 9 times more prevalent in women and children than in men at its peak because, while the men of the village took the choice cuts, the women and children would eat the rest of the body, including the brain, where the prion particles were particularly concentrated. The kuru epidemic , which is recorded to have begun in the 1920s, is believed to have been started by the consumption of a single individual with kuru, which then spread through the population . Oral history records that cannibalism began within the Fore in the late 19th century. Recent research at University College London identified a gene that protects against prion diseases, by studying the Fore people.
Medical implications Kuru is a type of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) caused by prions that are found in humans. Human prion diseases come in sporadic, genetic and infectious forms. Kuru was the first infectious human prion disease discovered. It spread through the Fore people of Papua New Guinea, among whom relatives consumed the bodies of the deceased to return the "life force" of the deceased to the hamlet. Kuru was 8 to 9 times more prevalent in women and children than in men at its peak because, while the men of the village took the choice cuts, the women and children would eat the rest of the body, including the brain, where the prion particles were particularly concentrated. Historical research suggests the kuru epidemic may have originated around 1900 from a single individual who lived on the edge of Fore territory, and who is thought to have spontaneously developed some form of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, a related prion disease . Oral history records that cannibalism began within the Fore in the late 19th century. Recent research at University College London identified a gene that protects against prion diseases, by studying the Fore people.
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The kuru epidemic , which is recorded to have begun in the 1920s, is believed to have been started by the consumption of a single individual with kuru, which then spread through the population
Historical research suggests the kuru epidemic may have originated around 1900 from a single individual who lived on the edge of Fore territory, and who is thought to have spontaneously developed some form of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, a related prion disease