I can only access the abstract, but it looks significant.
Parkinson disease risks: correctly identifying environmental factors for a chronic disease
Karl Kieburtz and E. Ray Dorsey
Published June 1, 2021 - More info
Parkinson disease (PD) is now the world’s fastest growing brain disease; however, the factors underlying this rise are unclear. The past 25 years has witnessed a vast expansion in our understanding of the genetics of PD, but few individuals with PD carry one of the major known genetic risk factors. Environmental factors, including individual (e.g., medications) and ambient (e.g., pollutants), may contribute to this rise. In this issue of the JCI, Sasane et al. examined the risk of PD associated with medications commonly used to treat benign prostatic hypertrophy. In contrast with previous studies, certain α1 receptor antagonists failed to lower PD risk. Rather, the commonly used comparator drug, tamsulosin, increased PD risk. This finding highlights the importance of selecting comparator groups to correctly identify risk factors. Future studies to address the rise of PD with emphasis on both individual as well as the understudied ambient environmental factors are warranted.
Yes, whatever, that's intellectually satisfying, always. The question though that lead from it, that matters at least, is: So what do we DO about it. That is always where it must go, for where else can it? Of course.
My husband switched to alfuzoxin or xatral instead of Harnal which is tamsoluxin. He was initially given Harnal for a month and then another urologist switched him to Xatral which is working well for him .
Harnal and Xatral are considered cousins but Tamsoloxin is considered a risk factor for PD. Certainly would not want to take anything that could make things worse.
Interesting... My husband has just recently been diagnosed with PD. I scratch my head wondering how ! He has never been subjected to a toxin environment or taken any medication in his life. He has a very healthy diet and exercised daily...BUT he was prescribed Tamulosin for enlarged prostate and took this medication for about a year. He stopped taking it when his problem was sorted. Bradykinesia set in rapidly just after.
Big data reveals drug’s potential to slow Parkinson’s progression in people
However, encouraging results in animals often fail to produce similar outcomes in people. So, Welsh tapped into his strong scientific collaborations at Iowa to get insight into the potential for terazosin to have an effect on Parkinson’s disease in patients.
“Mike walked down to my office and asked what I thought of the findings,” recalls Narayanan, a UI neurologist who cares for patients with Parkinson’s disease and studies the condition in people. “There have been many [preclinical] studies with interesting results like this, but what was lacking was a real clinical component.”
Welsh and Narayanan quickly realized that one group of people who tend to get Parkinson’s disease—older men—are the same people who are likely taking terazosin for enlarged prostate. That meant that existing clinical databases might hold clues about terazosin’s clinical effect in people.
So, Narayanan and Schultz, UI assistant professor of psychiatry, examined the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) database, which is sponsored by the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.
The data was exciting. It showed that men with Parkinson’s disease who were taking terazosin had reduced rates of progressive motor disability compared to men with Parkinson’s who were taking a different drug, tamsulosin, for enlarged prostate. Tamsulosin serves as a good control because it is also used to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia. Unlike terazosin, it does not have any effect on the PGK1 enzyme.
“Two or three days later, they came back with the data, and I just about fell out of my chair,” Welsh says. “Could not believe it. It was so cool!”
This was enough that Australia already approved the drug for Parkinson's. From my understanding of statistics , this big data technique has a higher confidence that the clinical trials for the FDA, especially with long term effects.
1) "Parkinson disease (PD) is now the world’s fastest growing brain disease." Substitute INJURY for disease.
2) "few individuals with PD carry one of the major known genetic risk factors."
3) "Environmental factors, including individual (e.g., medications) and ambient (e.g., pollutants), may contribute to this rise. Future studies to address the rise of PD with emphasis on both individual as well as the understudied ambient environmental factors are warranted."
WE (the patients and caregivers) must change the medical narrative. Publishers of medical research can't say it out loud or they will loose their funding. But WE can.
The umbrella term needs to be ENVIRONMENTAL ILLNESS.
(The very rare forms of genetic disease are important from a research standpoint for insight into the acquired environmental forms of illness due to injury.)
From my own knowledge base, PD, AD, ALS, Autism, and the other forms of neurodegenerative illnesses are de facto environmental illnesses.
Dementia is not a normal part of aging and Autism (formerly called vaccinosis) is not a normal part of childhood. Parkinson's disease is basal ganglia dysfunction - so is Autism. How many of the children with ADD/ADHD today will become the adults with PD tomorrow? Are we going to begin to see children diagnosed with Parkinsonism? Children get Multiple Sclerosis and they get ALS. This is a call to action.
SE
Nail. On. The. Head SE! The youngest case of PD is age 2. It’s happening. Multiple in their teens.
As does mine but it sure is proof that these modern diseases are due to environmental and lifestyle factors that interact with genetics. We have not evolved, changed, much at all since these diseases have all skyrocketed in prevalence. So if we examine what potential contributors exist now and did not exist when and where these diseases were rare or nonexistent, we will determine the causes.
I was new to PD research when I first developed symptoms that I at first thought was PD. I thought, OMG!!! They don't know what causes this.
I had been poisoned [at the time I was referring to my poisoning as a chemical exposure] and I knew the names of the products that were in the tank mix used by the crop sprayer that I inhaled. I brought printouts of the products and their ingredients and some research I had done for my first neurology appointment.
I said, "I'm the Canary in the coal mine." I can prove this!!! I feel now that the neurologist was mocking me. Anyone with a background in biology, chemistry or medicine knows the causes neurodegenerative injury [these are not diseases or illnesses].
We as citizen scientists and research warriors need to learn how to sift through dogma and tease out the kernels of truth.
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