Explanation: I would like to share this chapter with all of you. Because of a worsening in my mother's health, I don't know when I will be able to resume the English translation of my book on curing Parkinson's. I will be sharing some chapters in this extraordinary forum. I have to stop my investigation. I regret that I did not find a patron or mecenas who would allow me to continue on this exciting journey of rediscoveries.
CHAPTER 6.
THE SEARCH FOR HOPE "OUTSIDE" THE BUBBLE: OTHER NEUROLOGISTS, OTHER MEDICINES, OTHER DISEASES...
"If you only read the books that everyone else reads, you can only think what everyone else thinks,
you can only think what everyone else thinks".
Haruki Murakami
"He who does not know what he is looking for
does not understand what he finds".
Claude Bernard
"Perhaps you seek among the branches
what only shows itself in the roots".
Rumi
Not only is there life after Parkinson's, but outside this current "Parkinson's world" (of the peer-reviewable, published in famous journals and patentable), there are incredible sources of hope...
The famous engraving that appears in an 1888 Flammarion book in which the seeker, the philosopher sticks his head out of the vault to see what is outside. The text accompanying the original work reads:
"What then is this blue vault, which certainly exists and prevents us from seeing the stars during the day?".
If we want to see Parkinson's in another way, but in a way sufficient to provide a basis or foundation for an effective method of dealing with it, we must use everything at hand to prick the bubble, to get outside.
The best from here, the best from there. The ancient and the modern, the laboratory synthesised and Nature's own. Medicines, food, supplements, plants, habits, exercise, sun, music, different therapies, aromas, colours, light, etc. Everything to win the pulse of the Parkinson's giant.
I think it is essential that we put aside the idea of an incurable disease and focus on possible cures. I would even go further, even if they were hypothetically anecdotal, if they help us to have hope, they would be worthwhile. They would avoid the crushing burden of a disease that is getting worse day by day and forever. And it would not kill hope.
As a historian I perceive a great change in the studies that have appeared in recent years:
- very remarkable and advanced from India, China, Japan... (Borah, Zhang or Aoyama). Their cultural traditions and ancient medicines offer a wider focus on all aspects of the disease;
- many novel and courageous ones are led by women (Seidl, Parkinnen, Mischley, Seidl, etc.), who bring a freer vision of the challenges of Parkinson's (nutrients, alpha-nuclein critique, glutathione, etc.);
- and last but not least, most of them are open and free. And that provides independent researchers with very valuable sources: the most innovative, reviews and meta-analyses often explain very well the problems for which we are not specialists;
In that looking outside the claustrophobic environment of the "westernised" Parkinson's world, where there are certainly wonderful neurologists and researchers, but without the strength to change things. It seems to me necessary to look at other medicines, at other diseases, at other neurologists who at some point approached the heart of the labyrinth and left us a message of hope, far from the worries about their future careers, about conforming to dogmas to be ratified by peers in scientific journals or about the search for funds to finance their research....
It seems to me that the vision of the Western (or more Westernised) world is too rigid and straitjacketed, although on the "sides" of the main road there are quite a few exciting researchers and studies:
- Knekt, Suzuki, Fullard on vitamin D;
- Monti on NAC;
- Christine, McCaster and Schaffner on B12;
1. Other doctors and other neurologists.
Throughout the history of science and medicine, those who have dared to go further have been rejected by those around them for decades.
History is not only a teacher of life (Cicero) but it teaches us what is wrong in our time (Acton) or more difficult to see than in ancient times (Orwell).
As I read more and reflect longer on the world of Parkinson's and its history, the more convinced I am that the great sages like Hornyckiewicz, Cotzias, Birkmayer, Fahn, Olanow, Jenner, would have discovered the cure for Parkinson's by now had they combined vitamins and other nutrients with the necessary synthetic and patentable drugs, without interference and with an open mind to what works. I have no doubt that many wise people like Micheli, Hurni, Hinz, Perlmutter, Espay, Gonzalez Maldonado, know or sense the whole path or large parts of it, but the obstacles are terrible. And the price, ostracism at the very least. History is full of examples. Now the pressure is more intense. It is not easy to get funding for expensive studies. And then peer review, the demands of prestigious journals....
Dr William Harvey was scorned and treated as a charlatan for arguing that the heart pumped blood and that blood moved through arteries. It took more than 20 years for his findings to be accepted.
Dr Ignaz Semmelweis (who died a tragic and very sad death in 1865). To give a historical background, in 1862, the famous neurologist Charcot got his place at the Hôpital de la Salpêtrière. Semmelweis was expelled from the hospital where he worked for asking his colleagues to wash their hands after performing autopsies and before attending to women in labour...!!!. All the professors in Europe were opposed to washing their hands and some dipped their hands in the remains of corpses before attending to women giving birth to show their opposition to Semmelweiss's "nonsense". Puerperal fever reached a mortality rate of over 90 % in some hospitals (while it was almost non-existent in women giving birth at home attended by midwives). A disturbing paradox that has grown to colossal proportions in many ailments. The lessons are endless for our time.
Probably the world's most famous and media and publishing pampered neurologist, Dr Oliver Sacks (author of the book "Awakenings", whose film version was starring Robin Williams and Robert de Niro), was a staunch opponent of the widespread use of levodopa in Parkinson's patients because of its adverse effects (especially in those with dementia). One of his papers was rejected by almost all of his colleagues worldwide and refused publication by medical journals (Lobato 2016). In 1972, I think he gave up and in 1973 he published "Awakenings", with an international success that would follow him for the rest of his life...
The one who has dared to go further in the world of Parkinson's was the Austrian neurologist and neurosurgeon Walther Birkmayer, who from being one of the "fathers" of levodopa together with Hornyckiewicz became in the late 1980s the great heretic by proposing a form of vitamin B3, NADH, which stimulated the natural internal production (tyrosine-dopa-dopamine) of dopamine instead of supplying it from external sources (levodopa-dopamine).
But we have rediscovered old ways that give us hope. Without turning our backs on the new ones, which are coming with overwhelming force.
It took us a lot of work to open our minds even to unorthodox doctors... The book "Nutrition, the third medicine" by Dr. Jean Seignalet, Professor of Medicine at the University of Montpellier, who considered Parkinson's as a disease caused by cellular fouling; Dr. Heinrich Kremer's protocol of nutrients and substances to approach Parkinson's as a mitochondrial disease, etc., brought us confused hope because we did not understand much due to their depth and complexity, which we appreciated over the years, as they were world-class scientists.
Auriculotherapy (Dr. Ulrich Werth), Melatonin (Pierpaoli, Reiter, Dr. Acuña Castroviejo), Nicotine patches (Dr. Gabriel Villafañe in Paris), Coenzyme Q10 (Shults), L-Carnitine, NADH (Dr. Walther and Georg Birkmayer), Glutathione (Dr. David Perlmutter), Vitamin B2 and elimination of red meat (neurologist Paulo Cicero Galli Coimbra and biochemist Virginia Junqueira), Epigenetics (Dr. Manel Estellé), Nutrigenomics, CTOS neck surgery (Dr. Fernández-Noda), Small and large intestine (Dr. Thomas Borody, Dr. Berthet, Karolinska Institute), Physical exercise (Dr. Bastiaan Bloem, Alberts, Ahlskog), Music (Dr. Robert Zatorre), Intermittent fasting (Mark Mattson), etc.
2. Other medicines: such as Ayurveda from India or Traditional Chinese Medicine.
In recent years, surprising studies have appeared on the medicinal properties of plants, formulas, etc., which are normally used in other medicines.
Although due to their enormous importance (they could show us various ways for the cure of Parkinson's and, of course, for its complete relief) there are chapters in this book where they are dealt with in more depth, recent findings show us how exaggerated our conception of Western medicine is in comparison to others.
Ayurveda.
Centuries ago, thousands of years ago, traditional Indian medicine, known as Ayurveda, treated Parkinson's with levodopa, MAO inhibitors, anticholinergics combined with other plants to reduce its adverse effects, antioxidants, anti-inflammatory drugs, laxatives, sedatives, antidepressants, etc. A varied (holistic one would say today) treatment for a disease or syndrome that involves the whole organism. And with a minimum of adverse effects.
For many years I considered Western medicine and Neurology as infinitely superior to "backward" Indian medicine. But we can learn a lot from Mucuna and all the other treasures.
We got to know it through documentaries like "Ayurveda, the science of life", we had access to the studies of Dr. Manyam, Dr. Mukesh Paneri and his clinic (where he claims to successfully treat Parkinson's), as well as the website of Dr. Ray Sahelian.
Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Recent studies of plants used in this powerful medical tradition: plants such as "gouteng" (uncaria rhynchophylla), formulas that mix various medicinal plants such as Zhichan powder, capable according to some publications of curing the disease in its initial stages, etc.
Parkinson's would be caused by a "wind" from the liver and by fear. More complex perhaps than Hinduism. But the fact that 500 years ago (Ming dynasty) there were pills against tremor, with a cocktail of plants with levodopa and other substances used by western neurology a few years ago, opened a deep crack in the walls of our Parkinsonian labyrinth.
With greater or lesser scientific rigour, depending on the Western point of view, we were surprised by the vision of the patient and the illness as a whole, in which the multiple aspects of health and illness should be treated: insomnia, stress, constipation, massages, aromas (which go directly to the brain through the nose), etc. And they spare the patient the trauma of being diagnosed with a disease that is considered incurable, as that alone is a shock for the Parkinson's sufferer.
3. Other diseases.
Alzheimer's disease.
I know of no more effective key to open the Parkinsonian labyrinth than to look at other diseases, neurological if possible.
A documentary that changes everything. The research of neurologists Dr. David Snowdon with the famous study of the Mancato nuns in North America and of Dr. Patrick McGeer and the essential role of inflammation (discovering studies in which patients treated for osteoarthritis with anti-inflammatory drugs hardly suffer from Alzheimer's). Later we learned of similar studies with Parkinson's disease (COX-2).
Dr. Mary Newport and her husband with Alzheimer's disease. She used first cold pressed coconut oil (medium chain fatty acids, ketone bodies) with good results as she reports.
Multiple Sclerosis.
Dr. Terry Wahls and her advanced stage self-healing by feeding her mitochondria (coenzyme Q10, B vitamins) and repairing myelin. His lecture "Healing your mitochondria" is a gem for Multiple Sclerosis sufferers, but also for everyone. The low saturated fat diet of Dr. Roy L. Swank (Swank 1952, 1970, 1990).
Huntington's disease.
The case of Dr. Abraham Hoffer, neuropsychiatrist, and the "anecdotal" cure of a patient of this disease (a mixture of schizophrenia in the mind and Parkinson's in the body), with vitamin B3 and E in high doses. Until he reached the right amounts, the patient found no improvement (Hoffer and Foster, "Feel Better, Live Longer With Vitamin B-3").
OTC Lithium supplementation for PD
What if there's no single cure for everyone?
Vascular Dysfunction in the Brain as an Initiating Event in Parkinson’s Disease
Effects of coenzyme Q10 in early Parkinson disease: evidence of slowing of the functional decline
High uric acid diet for PD?
