It is not a matter if you dare to. It is a matter of someone want to listen to this person. The cure is out there. it is just to listen to all the studies and signals and put them together.
Of you can find a person with enough power or money to make a study. I will explain it to this person.
As it is nt a pill solution, there will be a lot of people that do not want this solution.
And probaly noone to invest in a study.
Anyone dare to listen that have got power to make a study?
(and if people get angry you know why people do not dare to speak up)
So do you dare listen with an open mind?
Written by
shaunaxx
To view profiles and participate in discussions please or .
If you listen to what has happened to me ro hav ebeen able to reverse most of my symptoms and come off all medication then you don't need to listen to critics, as you say, they do not want us to get better. I would love to motivate a study on what Fast Walking does to the Parkinson's brain. Whatever it is, it eorks.
First increase walking speed with gradually with long and short steps alternately on a flat surface and increase the distance until at least 5 miles before breakfast. Then do the same up a hill until almost 45 degrees incline up and down.
Only need one or two miles a day if on a 45 degree incline.
Walking fast on an uneven surface is very challenging to the brain, It is the brain that is damaged,
Sustained fast walking around a playing field is the best way to produce GDNF, which repairs the damaged brain cells,
Because our bodies need to rest for a day after energetic high intensity exercise, we should only do it every second day, to give the muscles time to recover.
Johnpepper - I think you are onto something. Treadmill studies have been done and they do help people with Parkinson's, as do other vigorous forms of exercise. Vigorous exercise raises uric acid levels, and I think uric acid levels are really key. Parkinson's has an inverse relationship to gout, which is a disease of high uric acid levels. My husband tested very low in uric acid recently. He has been on a diet to raise uric acid levels and been getting better.
I've been going through Pubmed and have written out hundreds of correlations and inverse correlations to PD. Most can be explained by relationships to uric acid levels. The gut bacteria, Prevotella, is high in people gout and low in people with PD. Everything just fits too well to not be a factor. Uric acid levels are low in people with PD and correspond to lower dopamine levels.
I believe your fast walking did help your PD and there are science based reasons why it did.
As you say, all energetic exercise helps Pd, but, none of them involves using the brain as much as Fast Walking. I have witnessed people on a treadmull watching TV. So ho much of the brain is being used? When we create the 'Fight or Flight'condition, our brains create lots of Growth Factor, and a specific Growth Factoe is GDNF, which repairs the cells damaged by Pd. GDNF was used in a trial in Bristol, England in 2003, in which 6 Far advanced Pd patients had artificial GDNF insereted directly into the brain. THey all improved by 60% diuring the tial period, So we know that GDNF is a very positive wauy to go.
Fast walking over uneven surfaces produces the most GDNF. That is the way to GO!
No controlled study wvidence,. Who would pay for a controlled study? It is not in the interests of the medical wirld to prove this to be a way to reverse the symptoms, would it?
I, and many others have esxperienced an improvement in symptoms the more we walk and a worsening of wymotoms when we have to stop because of other medical problems. Everyboduy has the same experience.
Um, just saying...if you get on clinicaltrials.gov there are 553 studies on walking and Parkinson's, the majority of which have some sort of control group. They may not all be specifically the kind of fast walking that you find has helped you, but none that I saw looked like they would benefit big pharma either. Yet someone is funding them.
At most 100 (probably less than 50) or so registered studies or CTs on walking covering any type of walking (including treadmill) as an intervention in terms of PD were ever published, especially related to the >65 age cohort. ( CTs with Interventions using the term aerobic do not use walking as an intervention; they use running.)
533 studies?. You are mixing apples, oranges, plums and grapes.
Be careful when citing clinicaltrials.gov as a reference. Many of these CTs never see the light of day or ever publish anything. So don't use this database if you can do so. It is very unreliable unless you know for a fact a study has published.
Let's not drown in details. The suggestion that no exercise CTs could exist because "Who would pay for a controlled study? It is not in the interests of the medical wirld to prove this to be a way to reverse the symptoms, would it?" is what's at issue here, and it's clearly incorrect.
No, studies on clinicaltrials.gov are active trials, either recruiting, about to recruit, or recently finished, so only a minority have been published because they aren't completed. It is not good science to publish midway. And more, a sizable chunk do not get results, and they don't publish either...in other words, they don't fabricate an outcome they didn't get. (They probably should publish negative results eg: "this exercise didn't help", but folks often don't.)
The bigger problem with interventions like exercise (and diet, which I swear by) is that there is no easy way to set up a real blinded control. How do you hide from the group who is exercising and who is not? And placebo effect is HUGE in PD.
thanks for your valuable insight into clinicaltrials gov. I'm just a Ph.d. biochemist with 30+ years running cancer clinical trials and 11 years running 2 PD support groups. I thought I was extremely familiar with the clinicaltrials.gov data base, but I guess not.
What is your background in terms of clinicaltrials.gov and clinical trials in general.?
JohnPepper - I'm glad fast walking worked for you. We're going for walks, but going too far gets my husband's legs tight and then his tremors get worse, so I don't think for him walking is going to be a 100% cure. A mix of walking, Qi Gong and stretches are helping. We're going on the assumption there isn't a single cause or cure and trying all sorts of nutrition tests, gut tests and healthy improvements, like the Breseden Protocol for Alzheimer's, only modifying it for what we've found in the Parkinson's research. And exercise is certainly a big part of that.
There is a Youtube video with a woman who seems sincere who says 3 hours a day of Qi Gong cured her PD.
I looked up GDNF and there seem to be many ways to increase it, with definite overlaps between what increases GDNF and studies of what helps Parkinson's, like sunlight exposure, vitamin D supplements, exercise, avoiding canned food and green tea. - selfhacked.com/blog/gdnf/
Hi Brenda. Did your husband start doing the fast walking in the way I recommend?
I recommend that he starts walking as fast as he can for as long as he can. It might only be for one or two minutes, but that is fine. Whatever it is, he must walk every second day for that time. Then, at the start of the thisrd week he must try to ad d on a bit more time, no more than 5 minutes. And that every third week.
How would he know he is walking as fast as he can? If he can still talk he is not walking as fast as He can, If he can't talk at all, hje is going too fast. He shopuld only be able to speak two or three words between breaths,
Speak to me by email I can give you so much more informatio, johnpepper@telkomsa.net
His leg muscles are really tight. He did hiking for a long time without any upper body exercises. His leg muscles are visibly tight, especially on the tremor side. What is helping him is Qi Gong to strengthen his upper body and stretching and acupressure on his legs. I understand you were helped by fast walking. My husband has the stooped posture which seems to contribute to the tremors. Walking isn't a known correction for posture improvement, but the Qi Gong, stretching, acupressure and foam roller exercises are.
JohnPepper - You may be familiar with is study so please ignore this if you have posted about this before, but if not, your brisk walking has been validated in a recent study - pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/339...
Conclusions - The six-month brisk walking and balance program alleviates motor symptoms, promotes functional and gait performance, walking capacity, and dynamic balance in people with mild to moderate PD.
Thanks for this. I have added it to the many others. It is a pitty that all the Pd patients on this website don't read all these study results proving that Fast Walking has a positive affect on Pd. If they did, there would be a lot more Pd patients getting better and taking less harmnful medication!
I agree 100%. I've just been going through Pubmed and making a spreadsheet of every at home, might help, can't hurt kind of treatment from studies on PD, and have over 100 factors that have shown improvement. Aerobic exercise, walking, Qi Gong, Tai Chi, yoga and and all kinds of dancing come up quite a bit. I feel like doing 50+ of natural kinds of treatments, mostly healthy diet tweaks and exercise, sure can't hurt and have good odds of some synergistic favorable impact.
The side effects form the meds also concern me. I am hoping my husband will also see enough improvement from the natural treatments he won't need them anymore. I see from some studies, natural treatments have helped enough for people to do that. If I remember right, in one Tai Chi study everyone improved and 9% reduced or went off their medications. He isn't off the meds yet, but he used to look forward to taking them to control the tremors. Now some days the tremors have stopped enough he forgets to even take the pills, so I think he is moving in the right direction.
The tremors will return if he doesnt take his meds. You are early in the disease when hope is high. I have not seen that people here on CAM do any better than those on conventional meds (in fact the opposite).
I hear what you are saying, Hikoi, I understand that has been your experience and the experience of many of those you know with PD. But then there's JohnPepper's experience, with PD improvements duplicated in fast walking studies. And studies like this that seem intriguing - "Participants in the TC [Tai Chi] group also reported a significantly reduced number of falls (average of 3.45 vs. 7.45 over the past six months), and many of them discontinued or reduced the use of other therapies, such as levodopa.
When hypothesizing about why tai chi produces such positive outcomes in Parkinson’s patients, the researchers believe that it normalizes the levels of neurotransmitters that are present at lower levels in this patient population — such as dopamine and acetylcholine — in various regions of the brain.
“When tai chi is practiced daily, it promotes the development of various de novo neural pathways in a [Parkinson’s] patient that results in fast response to posture challenges,” the researchers said."
And this was just from doing Tai Chi alone. Add in fast walking, posture corrective exercises, correcting nutrient deficiencies, microbiome testing, yoga, tango lessons, acupressure and 50+ other study based tests and treatments, and the good ideas I've already started picking up on this forum, who knows what will happen. Maybe a synergistic effect from the combined treatments?
Well it is good you are still positive but I think your trust in what you read on line is misplaced. How do you know John Pepper has PD? He says so but NO OTHER neurologist has publicly agreed. He has essential tremor. He does not have PD. Those who have followed him on here no longer support his claim. It is the new posters usually from the US who accept and are unquestioning. Because it is written does not make it true.
I don't know that he has PD but there are many published studies on aerobic exercise, treadmill walking, Nordic walking, brisk walking, dancing and other forms of exercise that all show improvements. Plus the Tai Chi study I posted above. Do you think all those researchers from all those different studies have not reported accurate results?
Searching Pubmed for "Parkinson's benefits exercise" returns over 31K results.
There's no dispute about the fact that exercise is beneficial in PD. There are questions around how it is beneficial and to what degree.
John's 'success', however, has never been replicated despite his relentless promotion of his protocol. He has admitted on this very forum that he has never heard from a single subscriber to his protocol that has been able to cease all PD medication (as he so frequently promotes as one of the features of his protocol) after a material amount of time and for a material amount of time. Thousands of book sales, thousands of forum posts, each themselves reaching thousands of readers. Surely hundreds and probably thousands of private email consultations. And not one success story. You do the math. There's an awful lot more, but that is plenty.
Brenda , you dont have to have PD to get benefit from exercise. It is beneficial for all people. Of course we need to exercise in PD, i would think that is self evident. There is after all the saying use it or loose it. But whether it changes the course of the disease is far more difficult to prove. No studies claim it reverses PD.
J P was doing 90 mins of intensive gym work out but he says it didnt help. He claims that the only way is fast walking “If you want to beat Pd then sustained high speed walking is the only way I know to reverse the symptoms.” he writes. So he doesn't accept nordic walking, tai chi, boxing, dance or treadmills to name a few.
I had never heard of JP before coming to this forum, but personally I find his experience plausible based on the study papers in Pubmed regarding treadmill, brisk and Nordic walking. Plus if he was walking outside he is getting more sunlight and vitamin D exposure, and studies show those both help as well. To your second point, on no studies claiming it reverses PD, I am not sure what you mean by that. Many people have reversed their symptoms in the studies. Maybe not 100% reversal in the studies, but they have shown significant improvement in symptoms.
But I also noticed in the studies they are usually having people come in and do a few hours a week. There is a woman on Youtube who was doing 3 hours a day of Qi Gong for an extended period of time, plus meditation (also found to help in the studies). I find her credible. If 3 hours a week of various forms of exercise brings on significant PD improvement in studies documented in peer reviewed medical journals, then what will 21 hours a week do?
Views as to the plausibility of JP's story or BM's credibility may be more convincingly expressed once one has been able to replicate them. If in 5 years time you can show datscans that demonstrate an improvement in DA activity then you will start attracting believers en masse. So far, no one has been able to replicate either even in anecdote, nevermind in any controlled or well documented fashion. In other words, they form part of the significant population of those that received a false positive PD dx.
JohnPepper - I noticed that strenuous exercise raises uric acid levels, which is known to be low in PD. Strenuous exercise, caffeine, beer, uric acid, liquor, tea, coffee, having gout and avoidance of dairy products, are all factors that show a protective effect to PD in numerous studies. All are linked to increased uric acid levels. It appears to be a common thread.
I still have problems believing I have PD. Mainly because of few symptoms or signs. I use a treadmill. I use various inclines and speeds. I even walk backwards on it. This is nothing new for me. I've done this for over 30 years. I was Dx'd with PD two years ago. I take Rytary daily. Since the Dx I've lost my job and home in Wyoming. I moved to Connecticut. When not using the treadmill I watch TV. That's my life now. I keep thinking I need something to do. Before the DX I was a serious distance runner.
I'm wondering if hiking the Appalachian Trail could be my new thing. The trail passes through Connecticut not to far from my house. I imagine the trail is uneven enough even to suit John Pepper. In the past I'd sometimes wear a backpack with an engine flywheel for weight. That could be part of my new thing.
First I have to deal with the fist-sized lump that was removed from my back. It's been three weeks since surgery. There's still a hole but it's no longer red or swollen.
If you want to beat Pd then sustained high speed walking is the only way I know to reverse the symptoms. Walk on a playing field that is not perfectly smooth and walk as gard as you can for as long as you can.
What is fst? If you can still speak more than 3 or 4 words you are not walking as fast as you can. If you cant speak at akk, you are going too fast. Don't walk at maximum speed for more than an hour. It can take quite a while to slowly build up to that tiem.
Hi Kaypeach.I'm sorry to have to tell you that all the things you mention might have some positive affect on your Pd, but who knows how much?
There are three essentials for creating GDNF in your brain:
1. Walking fast, which is not natural and can only be done with full conscious control!
2, Maintaining the high level of exertion for no longer than one hour
3. Having to concentrate on your walking action.
We human beings tend to find the easy way out of having to WALK! Why? The best answer to that is for your HEALTH, IT might be boring but is that such a problem? I have to still coventrate on my walking action after 27 years of have done the walking because, if I don't my speed decreases, I walk badly and I don’t involve my brain, which is the part of our body that needs repairing.
Give it an honest try for three months. You may not be able to walk flat out for more than a few minutes before having to slow down, well, that changes with practice. If you have to slow down then stop! Walking distance at less than your highest ability is just wasting time and effort. If you are human, like me, you might have to only start walking fast for 20 minutes, after having been unable to walk for a while.
You must only increase your time after each 2-weeks walking every second day, by adding no more than 5 minutes. You don't want injuries. Walking every day causes injuries!
I am not being pedantic. If you really want to get better then this is the way to do it!
I think there might be a lot of ways to stimulate the brain of PD patients. I understand GDNF--glial derived neurotrophic factor--as a subset of HGH--human growth hormone--can be stimulated by fast walking. But also by meditation. Walking meditation is one way of combining the two. Studies show HGH can be stimulated by exercising in a sauna. What these all have in common is they elevate the heart rate. Anything that elevates the heart rate results in a stronger, more efficient heart. Maybe that has a down-stream effect on the brain, specifically the substantia nigra. An hour of fast walking is not enough exercise for me. I make the effort harder by wearing these creepy shoes. Normally I have the TV on when using the treadmill. Today I'll try without the TV while hoping I can walk fast enough for a real effort.
He had obviously already done that without anyone listening. So he is understandably frustrated and wants to at least gather a crowd like a street performer first.So I have told him I want to listen and will be in the audience
If there are no physical handicaps, hardest part of fast walking is beginning the walk. Inertia can be self sustaining.So motivation is needed.
The best motivation is feeling better after 3 months.
But it is still not easy to begin a truly full tilt walk.
So self pep talk like: it is either this or the nursing home or the hospital or meds?
Recently I have heard rumors that fast walking may also be a substitute for Mitral valve replacement and dialysis. The skin is a very large organ of elimination.
Maybe sweating and motion can be another way of removing excess ??
Anyway, those rumors may serve as additional motivating factors.
Maybe another is as an antidepressant. Anthony Quinn was asked why he is able to stay away from Shrinks and Drugs, the usual bane of Hollywood. He said he does not need a Shrink or drugs. Instead
he walks up a hill every day.
Just a thought: was there less PD in the “greatest generation” or was it simply not reported?
Perhaps they were nourishing their brains back then before the doctors took away brain food like American breakfasts used to have: egg yolks etc. Have we been starving our brains by following Doctor’s bad advice. Is more cholesterol what we actually need? Is there a correlation between high IQ, high questioning minds and PD? Perhaps those minds need more nutrition than most?? I believe Dr. Lonsdale implies that active brains need more thiamine?
Content on HealthUnlocked does not replace the relationship between you and doctors or other healthcare professionals nor the advice you receive from them.
Never delay seeking advice or dialling emergency services because of something that you have read on HealthUnlocked.
Do you keep medications in the container they are received in? Inactive Ingredients may be Active.
Doing it while you can 
“Why Thinking About Death Helps You Live a Better Life” | Alua Arthur | TED
What Do You Do About Dread and Despair?
