Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is not the consequence of few weeks or months and it takes almost four years to have full impact on the cattle. When a cow is at its peak age of 4 to 5 years, it may be susceptible to this lethal disease. There is no particular breed which becomes the victim specifically because this disease may affect any breed.
BSE or mad-cow disease affected a huge number of cattle in the UK. According to statistics, almost 179,000 cattle had the BSE infection and, consequently, 4.4 million cattle were slaughtered to get rid of the disease.
There is high occurrence of AD in the USA and there is always a question that comes to mind whether there are some other neurodegenerative diseases that resemble AD but erroneously diagnosed as Alzheimer’s.
There is no clear cause of BSE according to latest research but researchers have consensus on the fact that this BSE is caused by some type of protein called as prions which is normally found in animals. The cows at the initial stage of the disease (BSE) have these prions in their intestines and tonsils. Later on, as the infection multiplies, it affects brain and spinal cord.
Now a strong relation has been established between mad-cow disease and CJD (a similar disease which is found in humans). So scientists believe that CJD in humans is caused when they eat BSE infected cattle’s meat. But the dairy products of such BSE infected cattle do not cause CJD in humans.