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Kuru is an incurable and fatal neurological disease that causes the nervous system to tremble and shut down. The rare prion disease is spread by eating human brains, mainly nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. The disease initially causes certain behavioral changes, and in less than a year, dementia, decreased mental function, convulsions and tremors develop, until various parts of the body are paralyzed and loss of consciousness. The patient is expected to die in about a year after contracting the disease. The Pula people at the center of the outbreak called it “Kuru” – which means “trembling” in their language – because people lost control of their limbs and body functions and trembled to death.
Koro disease is caused by a prion, a misfolded protein that is difficult for the cellular machinery to break down.Creutzfeldt-Jakob diseaseThe most likely explanation for the spread of the disease is that at some point someone with a randomly occurring fertility disorder (such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) died and the infected tissue was eaten by other members of the tribe.
The disease killed about ten percent of the tribe’s members, the study found, and was characterized by extremely high rates of disease among children and women relative to the rate among men. Almost non-existent. This figure was due to the fact that, according to local beliefs, the bodies were ritually cut up and eaten, with certain tissues given to certain relatives. Women and children were hit hardest by the disease – since they were allowed to eat the brain and spinal cord, believing that eating the brain was good for them – and the prions were concentrated in their bodies. “In addition, only women would eat other women, including their sisters and sisters-in-law. They would mourn them while eating them. It was a show of empathy from woman to woman,” explains Lindbaum.
For more information on this topic:
Cannibal tribe eats robbers as punishment – except for their penises
A rare glimpse into the customs of a remote tribe, where cannibalism is the norm
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