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Comment by foolfoolz | Hacker News Reader

if i don’t eat collagen because i’m afraid of prions is that overkil?

Statistically, yes. There’s thousands of risks you don’t even consider that are more dangerous. So probably not rational to worry about collagen.

There is no definite proof that gelatin can contain infectious prions, as long as it is manufactured according to industry standards. It’s theoretically possible. But your odds of getting struck by lightning are far higher in any given year. I wouldn’t worry about it.

Great comment, but... Now they will be afraid to go outside. ;)

A friend of mine got infected with prions. Well, it’s what the doctors believe since all other tests came up negative. They aren’t 100% sure but have documented it as that.

It’s amazing how quickly he degenerated. He was feeling weird physically and mentally and went to a doctor. Within a few months he was a different person but could recognize friends. He needed assistance for living. Within a year he was completely mentally gone. Just a different person with no means of communicating or doing anything for himself. Just completely sad.

How’d he get it you think?

Here's a case where they're pretty sure it was all the vitamins and supplements in collagen capsules that the patient consumed for years https://n.neurology.org/content/98/18_Supplement/3654

No one has any idea. He wasn’t exposed to anything that would be high risk for it, if that’s even a thing. As another person commented here, it sounds like it’s spontaneous in many cases. Or at least that’s our best answer.

You can spontaneously misfold a protein yourself. After a quick look on Wikipedia for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease: "An EU study determined that "87% of cases were sporadic, 8% genetic, 5% iatrogenic and less than 1% variant."[22]"

Best not to walk barefoot outside or touch something barehanded either. You'd also need to sterilize everything you eat and drink.

We need to use a bubble, right?

You’ll need to sterilize everything with a 50% solution of bleach. Not by spraying it like a domestic cleaning agent, mind you, but by submersing or covering it for five minutes. That should be enough to denature prions on the surfaces of everyday objects - but not tissue like food!

Time to boil food in bleach?

This seems like one of those things that I don't want to google.

From someone who’s been down the rabbit hole: don’t.

I imagine you’d okay if you ate gelatin (whether in stock, or jello are the knox stuff added to whatever)?

Just buy glycine, it's cheaper and has the same effect. Up to 20g/day is safe.

Do you have a link for the 20g/safe claim?

Examine.com has some data on this. [1]

No toxicity with glycine supplementation has been observed with doses up to 0.8 g/kg body weight (64 grams per day for a 176 lb adult)

[1] - https://examine.com/supplements/glycine/research/#KQek8l9-ba...

If this concerns you, look into hydrolyzed collagen (aka collagen peptides). I assume since they are broken down its a bit different, but can't back up my assumption.

Eating steak can also get you that

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