"Laughing Death"
In the 1930's, it was discovered that a lot of people actually lived in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, but they were on the edge of extinction. At the time they were discovered hundreds of people had been dying of a disease that they referred to as "kuru" because their symptoms displayed shivering and trembling. One of the first symptoms that they would develop is the inability to walk and use their arms, then it would gradually get worse to where they couldn't eat or do anything that was necessary to live. Another symptom and the reason that it is also referred to as "laughing death", is their uncontrollable emotions.
This disease was seen to be more prevalent in women and children, so it was first thought to be a result of witch craft. It wasn't until the 1960's that research in this area started to be done and after several studies it was found that their tradition of eating dead bodies was the problem. It turned out that this tribe believed it was best for loved ones to eat the dead bodies "as an act of love and grief", rather than them getting eaten by insects. The women would remove the brains of the deceased and cook it with herbs to eat. However, not everyone would eat it. It was the women's job to eat the dead person because it was thought that they could give the dead body a safe place to be for awhile. Knowing this tradition that the tribe had, explain why women were the ones to have the "laughing death" disease. The women would sometimes give children little pieces of the meal, which explained why children were also dying of this disease. Although the connection to the cause was made, the specific details of how it caused the death was still unknown during this time.
It wasn't until years later that it was found prions were cause of this disease. Prions are proteins that misfold normal proteins in the brain. The misfolded proteins would make holes in the brain and cause the so called kuru disease. Although the tribe stopped their tradition of eating dead bodies years ago, the last person to die of this disease was in 2009. However, there still exists similar diseases such as mad cow disease where prions are acquired from eating infected cow. I wonder if prions disease could be acquired from other eating other animals?
References:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/09/06/482952588/when-people-ate-people-a-strange-disease-emerged
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease)
This disease was seen to be more prevalent in women and children, so it was first thought to be a result of witch craft. It wasn't until the 1960's that research in this area started to be done and after several studies it was found that their tradition of eating dead bodies was the problem. It turned out that this tribe believed it was best for loved ones to eat the dead bodies "as an act of love and grief", rather than them getting eaten by insects. The women would remove the brains of the deceased and cook it with herbs to eat. However, not everyone would eat it. It was the women's job to eat the dead person because it was thought that they could give the dead body a safe place to be for awhile. Knowing this tradition that the tribe had, explain why women were the ones to have the "laughing death" disease. The women would sometimes give children little pieces of the meal, which explained why children were also dying of this disease. Although the connection to the cause was made, the specific details of how it caused the death was still unknown during this time.
It wasn't until years later that it was found prions were cause of this disease. Prions are proteins that misfold normal proteins in the brain. The misfolded proteins would make holes in the brain and cause the so called kuru disease. Although the tribe stopped their tradition of eating dead bodies years ago, the last person to die of this disease was in 2009. However, there still exists similar diseases such as mad cow disease where prions are acquired from eating infected cow. I wonder if prions disease could be acquired from other eating other animals?
References:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/09/06/482952588/when-people-ate-people-a-strange-disease-emerged
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease)
As we have gone through mad cow scares we learn more and more the consequences of feeding animals their own kind. On one side it makes since I think because we would be ingesting similar proteins and materials that our body would need to produce, but it doesn't exactly work that way as we break down materials. This is not the only time I have heard that cannibalism leads to disease and as far as I know it is much safer for us to stay away from it.
ReplyDeleteOn an evolutionary note, it makes sense that species would have developed mechanisms to select for the death of those that ate their own species. Through evolution, a species is usually looking to protect its kind, adapt, and reproduce. Obviously eating each other within a species is counterproductive to the pre-wired evolutionary goals. In addition, it seems likely that this is also done to protect the ecology of different species regarding how some are primary producers with others as consumers of either plants or animals or both. If the species balance is disrupted, an entire ecosystem can suffer, and once again, evolution is usually selecting for positive long-term outcomes.
ReplyDeleteI did one of my first blogs on kuru. I had learned about this disease in one of my courses and found it extremely fascinating. When I learned that it was because the tribes were eating their loved ones brains it definitely drew me in. Just imagine if the people never realized where they contracted this disease and continued to have the rituals for their dead loved ones. Eventually, everyone in the tribe would have contracted this disease. At that point there would be no stopping it.
ReplyDeleteI won't lie, I first herd about kuru on Scream Queens, so I knew a little bit about it. I knew how it was contracted, but I never knew about the uncontrollable emotions. I found it really interesting that they eat their loved one's bodies out of love and grief, and so they won't be eaten by insects. It also left me wondering if there is a cure? I guess there's not really a need for one anymore, but 2009 is still pretty recent.
ReplyDeleteSort of a weird novel based on the discovery of kuru: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People_in_the_Trees
ReplyDeleteThis is actually really interesting. I've heard of kuru but I didn't know that it caused uncontrollable emotions. I find it kind of crazy that this continued on until 2009, considering that was relatively recent.
ReplyDelete