• @ForgetPrimacy@lemmygrad.ml
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      102 years ago

      Hmmmmmmmm I thought prion diseases were (usually) a result of eating brain matter and occasionally the result of eating non brain matter that shared a body with a brain. By this understanding, the risk of prion diseases wouldn’t be a factor as only the misfolded proteins of a brain are ones that can be risky.

      • @motsu@lemmy.world
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        62 years ago

        A prion is just a misfolded protine that has some adverse behavior that your body can’t detect (there’s a mechanism that if your body identifies a malformed protine, it will terminate the cell making it). Anyway, prions live in this small region in a Venn diagram whereits can’t be detected, but can still replicate and cause harm.

        We mostly think of prion diseases (like mad cow) affecting the brain, but I dont think prions are isolated to the brain… Prion deseases happen to involve the brain a lot because a misbehaving protine in your brain will have a lot more apparent effects

    • @Ottopus@feddit.de
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      62 years ago

      But you could knock out the prion protein gene in the cell lines you use for meat production. It’s not needed for cell survival as far as I know.