There was a documentary on British TV earlier this year about a woman who can smell Parkinson’s. Or, at least, she’s discovered that there’s a particular odour associated with those who have the disease. Her success rate in diagnosis, independent of existing tests, is 100%. And this isn’t some crank “alternative medicine” thing; it’s being taken very seriously by researchers. (It interested me particularly because my mother was diagnosed a couple of years ago.)
Although the research done so far points to it being in patients’ sebum, I can’t help thinking there may be some connection here.
And it’s good to see some progress on Parkinson’s. Apart from direct brain stimulation, which, let’s face it, is pretty drastic, the treatment’s been much the same for over forty years. When you think of the changes we’ve seen in other fields of medicine over that period, it’s about time.
Another exciting recent development: discovery that inhibition of the protein USP13 cause accumulations of alpha-synuclein, the protein that accumulates in one form of Parkinson’s disease, and in some other neurodegenerative disorders, to reverse itself.
USP13 removes ubquitin tags from some proteins. These tags mark proteins for destruction in the cells’ proteosomes; without them proteins are not recycled as efficiently and can accumulate.
My father had Parkinson’s half his life and I had an appendectomy in high school so this was definitely of some personal interest. Thanks.
It would seem reasonable that it would play a bigger role than the Index, though perhaps not as big a role as the Epilogue.
But what role does the forward play? Seems like the most useless part.
Gut bacteria may also be implicated in type 2 diabetes, by production of a metabolite that interferes with the action of insulin.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181026105602.htm
There was a documentary on British TV earlier this year about a woman who can smell Parkinson’s. Or, at least, she’s discovered that there’s a particular odour associated with those who have the disease. Her success rate in diagnosis, independent of existing tests, is 100%. And this isn’t some crank “alternative medicine” thing; it’s being taken very seriously by researchers. (It interested me particularly because my mother was diagnosed a couple of years ago.)
Although the research done so far points to it being in patients’ sebum, I can’t help thinking there may be some connection here.
And it’s good to see some progress on Parkinson’s. Apart from direct brain stimulation, which, let’s face it, is pretty drastic, the treatment’s been much the same for over forty years. When you think of the changes we’ve seen in other fields of medicine over that period, it’s about time.
Another exciting recent development: discovery that inhibition of the protein USP13 cause accumulations of alpha-synuclein, the protein that accumulates in one form of Parkinson’s disease, and in some other neurodegenerative disorders, to reverse itself.
https://www.drugtargetreview.com/news/36689/inhibiting-usp13-parkinsons/
USP13 removes ubquitin tags from some proteins. These tags mark proteins for destruction in the cells’ proteosomes; without them proteins are not recycled as efficiently and can accumulate.
My father had Parkinson’s half his life and I had an appendectomy in high school so this was definitely of some personal interest. Thanks.