May 2, 2004 CTV NEWS

AVIS FAVARO [Reporter]: At this Toronto clinic, an all day program cares for an ever-growing number of people developing Alzheimer's disease.

ODETE NASCIMENTO [St. Christopher's House]: We notice that the people coming and staying with us the last few years, there is a big increase in the needs.

FAVARO: There have been many theories about the increase in Alzheimer's. Now there's a new one. Murray Waldman is a coroner and a doctor at St. John's rehab centre in Toronto. He believes Alzheimer's has roots in the meat that we're eating, a premise outlined in his book "Dying for a hamburger."

DR. MURRAY WALDMAN [St. John's Hospital]: There seemed to be a very strong correlation between the processing of meat and the rates of Alzheimer's.

FAVARO: It's not a theory, he says, that's borne from a lab, rather borne from a look at the big picture. Rates of Alzheimer's, he says, are lower in countries that don't consume a lot of meat, and rise in nations where vast quantities of meat are mixed together to make inexpensive hamburger, salami and sausages. And that, he says, could be the root of transmitting prions, infectious agents that trigger mad cow disease in humans, a fatal brain disease. Dr. Waldman thinks prions may be linked to Alzheimer's as well.

WALDMAN: The major characteristic of all prion disease is dementia and that's the major characteristic of Alzheimer's.

DR. NEIL CASHMAN [University of Toronto]: It most certainly is not a prion disease.

FAVARO: Dr. Neil Cashman bristles at the theory. There's no proof that Alzheimer's is a transmissible disease.

CASHMAN: I don't believe that Dr. Waldman has made a causal link between the meat packing industry and Alzheimer's.

FAVARO: And the meat industry says the book and the theory are simply not credible.

JAMES LAW [Canadian Meat Council]: Canadian consumers of hamburger and beef should be not at all concerned.

FAVARO: While there is no proof that these two brain diseases are in fact linked, it is a recurring theory that will be discussed at two major scientific conferences in the coming months.

WALDMAN: I think it points the way to further research.

FAVARO: That's what he's hoping to do, inspire scientists to keep looking for a reason why so many are ending their years with healthy bodies but with diseased minds. Avis Favaro, CTV News, Toronto.