Wayne State Advancements May Lead to New Treatments for PD
"A research team led by Assia Shisheva, Ph.D., professor of physiology in Wayne State University's School of Medicine, has made breakthrough advancements on a new molecular mechanism that may provide a means to "melt" these pathological clumps" [Lewy body accumulation of misfolding a-synuclein protein].
Thanks Metaocognito
Thanks for the update. I'll be honest and say I rarely read these new latest and greatest articles any more. While I know the a-s protein zappers look promising I think I'll wait for the final proof.
Understandable. Although a credible, commonly available remedy may be 10 or more years away, a phase-3 trial on a couple of these may be worth participating in (to some). In any case, any news of progress serves to stoke a bit of hope...
True dat. 🔜 BTW, great icon
Hi Metacognito Very academic but I understand your enthusiasm for this type of research. Read a synopsis some time ago on work done by Prof Wood of P centre at Oxford on the work of identifying chemicals that can stop the spread of the alpha - synuclein gene. What was particularly interesting about it was was that the researchers were hoping to eventually use it as a treatament for Alzheimers as well as PD.
Whoever pulls that one off will go into the history books
Wood at Oxford or University College of London? The one at the latter is associated with RNA injection that prevents a-syn misfolding. All the researchers in that work for the college which holds the patent. Always a bad sign. They need to compare their patented method to the 10+ natural nutrients that are known to cross the blood brain barrier and stop a-syn formation.
I'm sure PD can be stopped, it's just going to take a long time to find out which compounds and exercise program is enough to do it in most people with certain gene profiles. Three things as good as 2 hours of exercise per day is a cure. For some with a certain genetic profile, that may simply be adding cannabis and melatonin. For others with different genes maybe coffee and canola oil. I'm slowly discovering things that help me. Melatonin and anti-inflammatories are the newest.
For some people it appears 1 to 2 hours exercise per day is enough. If you do not get your heart rate about 120 beats per minute for an hour a day, I would say you have not tried exercise, and should not express a negative opinion about exercise and PD until you have tried it.
Maybe someday we will be able to swallow some "nanobot-like" chemicals that get energy from an applied alternating magnetic field to directly unfold bad a-syn and tag it for removal from the body.
Prof Matthew Wood is based at Oxford though some of his research staff are based in London and Stockholm. Some of them managed to switch off a gene implicated in Alzheimers, switched it off by 70%. This arose from the use of vesicles. Parkinson's UK took a deep interest in this work.
They are saying the right amount of Sac3 in the brain can prevent Syphilin-1 from combining with a-syn which would be toxic. It is important for a reason they do not mention: properly functioning Synphilin-1 can help remove a-syn from neurons. Removing a-syn is why a lot of nutrients work.
As far as natural nutrients that are already known to doing what they are attempting with synphilin and a-syn, I could find only 1, ellagic acid ("found in blackberries, cranberries, pecans, pomegranates, raspberries, strawberries, walnuts, wolfberries, and grapes." - wikipedia):
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/252...
That is not to say other nutrients that work in PD do not do this, it's just that Synphilin is not researched as much as a-syn so there will be less papers written about nutrients that prevent Synphilin's aggregation..
Fasting also promotes a chemical that prevent Synphilin aggregation:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/229...
There was also a Chinese herb chemical
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/221...
There is a bioavailable fake-curcumin being researched in cancer that had a similar effect in PD:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/211...
I've been putting together a list of compounds that prevent a-syn misfolding or even unfold it (as opposed to preventing synphilin misfolding or aggregation). My list so far is: rasagiline, nicotine, caffeine, grape seed extract, ginseng, naringin, and tangeretin. The last 2 were hard to find and expensive, so I ordered them from China. They are in grapefruit and tangerines. I take them all everyday in the highest dose I can tolerate, except for rasagiline because it is not natural and less effective and toxic at higher doses. Methylene blue and BPA also prevent a-syn misfolding, but I am not taking them. I have a list of more obscure natural compounds, but they are not available at a reasonable price. For example $100 a day for auraptene is not in my budget.
Getting back to this specific research on synphilin and Sac3, there are a lot of complications in it. There is an optimal range for Sac3 in how it affects Synphilin-1. The toxicity they are talking about is in how it binds to a-syn. The original paper is more complicated than any PD paper I can remember.
It's good to keep in mind the article promoting the paper is written by Wayne State "PR department". They have to promote themselves in order to get more funding, just generally letting the world know what they do and why it is important. This is standard practice. But it's not an independent reporter or researcher conducting an interview and some PR departments get carried away in making research sound more important than it is.
Here's the full paper.
Bacillus subtillus vs Alpha synuclein
Phenylbutyrate for Alpha-synuclein Clearance from the Brain
ANOTHER STUDY BRINGS MORE HOPE -- ALPHA SYNUCLEIN CLUMP REMOVAL
Another Potential Benefit Of Melatonin for PwP 
