5 ms·

Dopamine is to help control symptoms, not to slow development of the disease. There is no use for dopamine treatment in an early diagnosis that precedes meaning

Dopamine is to help control symptoms, not to slow development of the disease. There is no use for dopamine treatment in an early diagnosis that precedes meaningful symptoms. Lifestyle changes, on the other hand, mostly meaning exercise, significantly and reliably slow the onset and development of symptoms.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
hammock 3y ago
What does early intervention look like for Parkinson’s besides lifestyle changes?
- mchusma 3y ago
  My mom has Parkinson's and was in the medical industry for many years (so is a reasonably savvy person). So I trust her opinion, and have been helping her manage the disease. There is effectively nothing at this point that appears to stop the progression of the disease besides lifestyle changes. My mother at 70 goes to the gym for about 2 hours a day on average. This is the most obviously helpful. She has tried fecal transplant (limited evidence this helps in studies, dindn't help her biomarkers), tested going gluten free/dairy free (also some limited evidence it works, didn't help her biomarkers). There are multiple things for brain stimulation, including vibrating tactile glove/boards, but these help symptoms. We have talked to many different Parkinson's experts around the world, and I think at this point the only thing she seems to think really makes a difference is lots of exercise. She completed halting any evidence of the progression of the disease for about 5 years with exercise, but it will not last forever. So completely serious, if you get flagged for Parkinsons, and start getting in amazing shape, you have a good chance of really helping yourself get more good years. Fingers crossed for ongoing research to finally find some way to stop or reverse the damage in another way! (not medical advice)
  - sleepytimetea 3y ago
    Not to discount the correlation that matches her progression history, but Parkinson's can progress in fits and starts...a stable plateau can suddenly turn into a cliff with accompanying severe decline in health.
  - aljungberg 3y ago
    That's awesome. It's not easy to get seniors to spend that much time in the gym, so well done if you contributed to motivate her! Physical exercise is indeed one of the few Parkinson's treatments that there's little doubt about. In terms of reversing the damage, look into photobiomodulation (PBM) aka red light therapy. In "Improvements in clinical signs of Parkinson's disease", Liebert et al in 2021, she shows improvement in all symptoms including cognition, which is one of preciously few such results I've found in my extensive search of the literature[1]. Caveats are that this was a proof-of-concept study with n=6 only and that the red light helmet is somewhat expensive if you want to try it. There's a Canadian company that makes one for above $2000 (modern, very sci-fi thing), and a more hackerish version from an Australian company for ~$700 (pairs of diodes on aluminum bands you have to finish assembling yourself). [1]: At least which are actionable for the public. There are tons of trials but good luck getting in early unless you can donate a new library to the university! Gene therapy, stem cell therapy, GDNF, drugs that target alpha-synuclein are all promising but not yet accessible. PBM is something you can do today and since mitochondrial dysfunction is a leading hypothesis in the pathogenesis of PD, the treatment fits.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

hammock 3y ago

What does early intervention look like for Parkinson’s besides lifestyle changes?

mchusma 3y ago
My mom has Parkinson's and was in the medical industry for many years (so is a reasonably savvy person). So I trust her opinion, and have been helping her manage the disease. There is effectively nothing at this point that appears to stop the progression of the disease besides lifestyle changes. My mother at 70 goes to the gym for about 2 hours a day on average. This is the most obviously helpful. She has tried fecal transplant (limited evidence this helps in studies, dindn't help her biomarkers), tested going gluten free/dairy free (also some limited evidence it works, didn't help her biomarkers). There are multiple things for brain stimulation, including vibrating tactile glove/boards, but these help symptoms. We have talked to many different Parkinson's experts around the world, and I think at this point the only thing she seems to think really makes a difference is lots of exercise. She completed halting any evidence of the progression of the disease for about 5 years with exercise, but it will not last forever. So completely serious, if you get flagged for Parkinsons, and start getting in amazing shape, you have a good chance of really helping yourself get more good years. Fingers crossed for ongoing research to finally find some way to stop or reverse the damage in another way! (not medical advice)
- sleepytimetea 3y ago
  Not to discount the correlation that matches her progression history, but Parkinson's can progress in fits and starts...a stable plateau can suddenly turn into a cliff with accompanying severe decline in health.
- aljungberg 3y ago
  That's awesome. It's not easy to get seniors to spend that much time in the gym, so well done if you contributed to motivate her! Physical exercise is indeed one of the few Parkinson's treatments that there's little doubt about. In terms of reversing the damage, look into photobiomodulation (PBM) aka red light therapy. In "Improvements in clinical signs of Parkinson's disease", Liebert et al in 2021, she shows improvement in all symptoms including cognition, which is one of preciously few such results I've found in my extensive search of the literature[1]. Caveats are that this was a proof-of-concept study with n=6 only and that the red light helmet is somewhat expensive if you want to try it. There's a Canadian company that makes one for above $2000 (modern, very sci-fi thing), and a more hackerish version from an Australian company for ~$700 (pairs of diodes on aluminum bands you have to finish assembling yourself). [1]: At least which are actionable for the public. There are tons of trials but good luck getting in early unless you can donate a new library to the university! Gene therapy, stem cell therapy, GDNF, drugs that target alpha-synuclein are all promising but not yet accessible. PBM is something you can do today and since mitochondrial dysfunction is a leading hypothesis in the pathogenesis of PD, the treatment fits.