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Parkinson’s Disease, a brain condition affecting 10 million people worldwide that degrades mental function and causes tremors and rigid muscles, normally affects people aged 60 or older, according to the Parkinson’s Foundation.
However, over the last five years, the rate of increase among people aged 30 to 64 has risen by 50 percent, a spike for which no one has found the cause, insurance giant Blue Cross Blue Shield reported.
At least now, after decades, there may be a cure on the horizon.
A hallmark of Parkinson’s is the loss of the chemical dopamine in a brain region called the substantia nigra.
Autopsies of brains from Parkinson’s sufferers show that an enzyme called parkin is missing, which allows a protein known as PARIS to accumulate in the substantia nigra.
Too much PARIS keeps the substantia nigra from defending itself against damage by reactive oxygen molecules, essentially toxic waste from the body’s normal metabolic processes.
Absent parkin, the reactive oxygen molecules poison the substantia nigra and it’s no longer able to make dopamine.
An international scientific team working out of Johns Hopkins University used computers to screen thousands of substances that might deactivate PARIS.
In the end, they found that the best candidate is farnesol, an antimicrobial molecule common in fruits, herbs, and fungi.
When the researchers fed a farnesol-rich diet to engineered mice that had Parkinson’s, after a week the targeted mice performed better on tests of muscle strength and coordination than a control group of sick mice did.
Brain tissue from the mice fed a farnesol diet also showed 55 percent more protective chemicals against PARIS and twice as many healthy dopamine-related brain cells.
The researchers are urging clinical trials to test the effectiveness and proper dosage in human Parkinson’s patients.
TRENDPOST: Farnesol is found in foods but also is produced commercially. Levels that can be safely tolerated by humans haven’t been established, but the fact that farnesol is a compound we already consume will simplify and speed tests of it as a Parkinson’s treatment.
Once again, nature is pointing to a cure that can replace synthetic pharmaceutical chemicals, and their side effects, that have been the standard tool of conventional medicine.
Gradually, the catalog of natural cures is being expanded by credentialed medical researchers, giving physicians safer alternatives with which to treat a widening range of conditions.