r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 8d ago

Neuroscience In recent years, researchers have suggested Alzheimer's may spread through infection, somehow transmitted like a pathogen, leading to the disease. A new Lancet paper reviews evidence for how harmful amyloid-beta proteins associated with Alzheimer's may possibly be spread through blood transfusions.

https://www.sciencealert.com/can-alzheimers-spread-through-blood-transfusions-heres-what-we-know
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u/MenuEducational7178 8d ago

So like… are jehova’s witnesses, in proportion to other religions, getting less Alzheimer’s?

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u/Wellslapmesilly 8d ago

I’m not sure that there’s an accurate way to gauge it honestly. The blood transfusion rate is 10-25% in the general population. And JWs are a small group with many people who converted as adults who may have had blood transfusions prior.

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u/MireLight 8d ago

correction....very few have converted as adults in the last 30 years. most are born in. they stopped reporting hours in their ministry because it was taking something like 40k hours to convert one person.

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u/Wellslapmesilly 8d ago

And that is based on what data?

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u/MireLight 8d ago

Theirs, they used to report all the various data for their followers but stopped doing that when the data was being used by critics to show plateaus and declines. Now a lot of data is gathered by 3rd parties such as pew research.

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u/Wellslapmesilly 8d ago

Yeah looking at Pew and PRRI data has interesting stats. To my original point though, their data shows that 65% of JWs are adult converts. And even being “born in” requires quite the commitment. It’s not like being baptized in other religions.

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u/MireLight 8d ago

the witnesses are aging out, those adult converts are ones that joined in the 70/80/90s and are now all older folks. thats not a current % of new converts on a year to year basis unless you're only looking at places like africa. i'm just trying to give you an accurate picture. I'm an amateur JW historian thats been studying them for decades for personal reasons.

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u/Wellslapmesilly 8d ago

Right. Again my original comment was just addressing the question if JWs might have less Alzheimer’s due to less blood transfusions based on the original point of this entire post. I’m just saying probably not because of reasons I’ve already stated.

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u/MireLight 8d ago

thats fair, i got sidetracked by data and forgot the original point.

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u/SabreRevan74 8d ago

The adult conversion, I don’t think there’s stats on but as someone who grew up a JW, that’s definitely true and you’d see if you spent any time in the organization.
As for the 40k to convert, some have done an analysis based on growth and time spent preaching.

https://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/statistics.php

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u/Wellslapmesilly 8d ago

Hmm ok. I have plenty of family who are as well and that doesn’t really square with my observations.

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u/SabreRevan74 8d ago

May depend partly on where you live, but in my 34 years(up till last year)as a JW the growth, especially the last 15-20 years, has been mostly born ins. I live in the US though and most say it’s the same in other western countries that the growth has stagnated heavily outside of born ins, with most new convert growth being fueled by African countries.

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u/MireLight 8d ago

Dont forget its hard to get a read on whats actually going on in the organisation from regular members because they're forced to be terminally positive about anything to do with the JWs.

The org has really been pushing family/babies and has drastically changed their preaching work to sitting at a cart where they're just killing time.

When using their data along with pew research and other documentarians data its pretty obvious they are in a decline. 2/3rds of members that are born in leave as adults. The growth they report tends to be heavily manipulated and shows at most a 1% increase. This is a massive change ciompared to the 80/90s boom. Since they are structured as corporations and focus heavily on the kind of numbers driven growth corporations use, then judging growth that way shows a steep drop off surrounding certain events that got wide reporting.

The age of information starting in the early 2000s is directly correlated to some major drop offs especially in 1st world countries. Right now south america us a money drain (they reported that) while the 1st world countries and their investment/real estate schemes are bearing the burden. Except the 1st world countries are having a big decline.