(Excerpt from the book I am writing now. I hope you find it useful).
Is Parkinson's disease a lifestyle disease?
1. Parkinsonian style
(increased risk of developing the disease)
I have less and less doubts about the existence of a "Parkinsonian" way of life, which predisposes and increases the risk of developing the disease (especially from the fifth or sixth decade of life onwards) and which coincides in many respects with that which possibly aggravates it once the disease has been diagnosed.
My father was considered a typical Parkinsonian case, almost 100%. He could have been one of those listed in the medical literature: family history, psychological trauma in childhood, sedentary life and obesity, history of hepatitis, drank well water in his village during his childhood, anaphylactic shock, chronic insomnia, phobic anxiety, abuse of drugs in general and of strong antibiotics, as well as the use of neuroleptics, intestinal disorders, unhealthy nutrition all his life (rejection of vegetables and fruits, excess of fried foods, sweets, etc.) and many other things.
In spite of everything, he lived 18 years with the diagnosed disease. And even in the last few years, he would sit up in his armchair to do breathing exercises when the nutritional changes made him experience some improvement.
In 2003, the first major crack opened in the wall of our ignorance and arrogance (both form a very strong cement). The news of the recommendation made by the scientist Luc Montagnier (Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2008) to Pope John Paul II, who was suffering from Parkinson's disease, about the consumption of fermented papaya extract to combat the Parkinson's disease he was suffering from, due to its richness in antioxidants.
Another such piece of news came from Brazil. A team of Brazilian researchers, led by neurologist Dr Cicero Galli Coimbra, reportedly achieved surprising results by giving high-dose vitamin B2 (riboflavin) to their patients (90mg three times a day) and eliminating red meat from their diet. The improvements in their mobility abilities were up to 71%.
Then we understood almost nothing. Antioxidants and vitamins... Since all the patients were taking levodopa and were regular red meat eaters, it is possible that much of the improvement in mobility was due to the fact that the meat removed from the diet no longer hindered the drug from reaching the brain. We later learned that riboflavin (vitamin B2) activates vitamin B6 (pyridoxal phosphate), which is essential for the synthesis of dopamine from dopa, stimulates glutathione and energy synthesis in mitochondria (ATP).
In Dr. González Maldonado's book ("El extraño caso...") we read about the existence of psychogenic parkinsonism (largely produced by the mind). Then we learned that in almost all types of Parkinsonism or parkinsonism, the mind possibly plays an important role.
The first studies we learned about were about:
The increased risk of Parkinson's related to diet poor in vitamin E (Golbe, 1988, 1990) and to excessive consumption of dairy products (Chen 2002).
The existence of drugs that produced Parkinsonism or aggravated existing Parkinsonism (books by González Maldonado, Martí-Massó 1988, Nguyen 2004).
Psychogenic Parkinsonism (Lang 1995).
The danger of pesticides, with high percentages of parkinsonism among Amish populations (Racette 2009); or of manganese from the steel alloy industries in Brescia, Italy (Lucchini 2007), which prevents the hydroxylation of tyrosine, the precursor of natural dopa; the apparent lack of preventive efficacy of vitamin E (DATATOP study), etc.
Vitamin E also occupied many hours of reading and debate. It is now known to be composed of four tocopherols and four tocotrienols (alpha, beta, delta and gamma). There are a few more forms, but they are not of interest for this commentary.
The DATATOP study was conducted only with alpha-tocopherol (2000 IU per day for two years) and not with tocotrienols, part of natural vitamin E which has potent neuroprotective effects (Sen 2004, Osakada 2004, Khanna 2006). This would explain why the diet rich in full vitamin E is protective and not the one used in the studies with only part of the vitamin. Another aspect to consider is whether vitamin E was supplemented with fat (it is fat-soluble and without fat cannot be assimilated by the body).
The fact that drinking coffee (Benedetti 2000) or smoking (Hernan 2002, Grandinetti 1994) was significantly protective against Parkinson's, and that among non-coffee drinkers the risk was five times higher (Hu 2007), either because of caffeine or vitamin B3 (Hellenbrand 1996, Ross 2000), and among non-smokers the risk was higher (40 %) and that the protective effect depended on time and number of cigarettes, also attracted our attention.
This does not mean that smoking is good, but that nicotine is a substance to be taken into account. Nicotine patches are already used to treat Parkinson's disease (Dr Villafañe in Paris).
Dr Caroline Tanner's research in 2002, with tobacco and twins, was one of our constant references in the following years.
Later, I gathered more studies, which, together with those already known, reinforced our conviction that there was a lifestyle that clearly increased the risk of developing the disease:
Depression increases the risk of Parkinson's threefold (Shen 2013). And insomnia increases the risk of depression.
Phobic anxiety (Weisskopf 2003).
Sleep disorders that affect the REM phase increase the risk as well. 45% end up suffering from Parkinson's or other neurological diseases related to dopamine (Iranzo 2006, 2009, 2014).
Sedentary lifestyles and lack of exercise (Xu 2010).
Obesity (Abbot 2002) multiplies the risk by a factor of 3.
Excess saturated fats (Peers 1997).
Drinking little water throughout life (Ueki 2004) or drinking well water in early life (Barbeau 1987).
High cholesterol (Hu 2008) and type 2 diabetes (Hu 2007) also increase the risk.
Chronic constipation years or decades earlier (Petrovitch 2009, Savica 2009, Gao 2011).
In my opinion, the various studies cited above would point to the possibility that Parkinson's is, not only but to a large extent, a multi-carrier disease: before and during treatment, deficiencies of magnesium, zinc, vitamin D, vitamin B6, vitamin B3, dopamine, GABA, norepinephrine, epinephrine, tyrosine hydroxylase, tryptophan, glutathione, etc. (Karobath 1971, Charlton 1997).
Not drinking coffee, not smoking (although not recommended because of its many negative health effects), increases the risk of Parkinson's disease. Although it is not clear whether it is only caffeine and nicotine, or whether the way of life associated with habits (a more playful view of life) is also important.
Dr. Werbach's book "Textbook of Nutritional Medicine", which we bought from a famous online bookstore in the USA, made us look at the studies in a different way.
Breathing issues and Parkinson's Disease
Shining a light on Protein Aggregation in Parkinson's Disease
