What causes Parkinson’s disease?
Until recently, the cause or causes have been unclear.
Now, researchers at Johns Hopkins have just reported that they have identified the series of cell death events that leads to Parkinson’s.
In the study, reported in the medical journal Science, the researchers discovered that the first step on the downward slope to Parkinson’s disease is an accumulation of malformed proteins in brain cells. These proteins, known as alpha synuclein, have long been linked to Parkinson’s disease progression, but it was unclear how they specifically affected brain cells.
“Nailing down how cells die in this disease increases our hope that someday we will be able to treat and possibly cure Parkinson’s disease,” says Ted Dawson, MD, PhD, director of the Institute for Cell Engineering and professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
To do the study, his research team treated mouse brain cells with alpha synuclein and watched what happened. Over the course of 14 days, as the brain cells began to die off, the researchers noticed that they had “turned on” a protein called PARP1. This enzyme acts to decrease the NAD/NADH ratio (remember that). A decrease in this NAD/NADH ratio turns down metabolic energy production, and leads to deterioration of the cell. Then they tested whether blocking PARP1 could rescue the cells from the death spiral. Sure enough, when they did that, the cells survived. But, they did not stop there.
The next step was to see what happens in living mice. To do that, the research team injected alpha synuclein clumps into the brains of both normal mice and mice genetically engineered to lack the PARP1 gene. The researchers found that the normal mice began to show the signs of Parkinson’s: muscle weakness, loss of coordination, and decreased movement. However, the mice lacking PARP1 showed no decline. This is further evidence that activation of the PARP1 enzyme is what causes the brain damage in Parkinson’s. But, once again, they did not stop there.
Just to nail down the experiment, the researchers repeated it on the normal mice, only this time they gave them a drug that blocks PARP1. The same thing happened. The treated mice did not show any of the signs of Parkinson’s. According to the authors, the study clearly shows that the mechanism of cell death in Parkinson’s is by activation of the PARP1 enzyme. Well, all this is good and fine for little furry creatures. But, what about two legged animals?
To see whether this was the mechanism behind Parkinson’s disease in humans, the researchers collected cerebrospinal fluid from 21 Parkinson’s disease patients in various stages of the disease, and fluid samples from 33 healthy people. They then measured the amount in each sample of a substance that indicates PARP1 activation. The greater the amount of this substance, the greater the activation of PARP1. They found that there was approximately twice the amount of the substance in the samples from people with Parkinson’s disease. They also discovered that those patients with a faster progression of Parkinson’s disease had the greatest amount of the substance. But, here’s the problem.
The researchers concluded that the way to prevent and treat Parkinson’s was to develop drugs designed to block PARP1. That makes sense, but there is a problem with that approach. It’s because the PARP1-inhibiting drugs that have been tested so far have one serious side effect. They can kill people! But, there is a better, natural solution.
Remember that the action of PARP1 is to decrease cellular energy production by lowering the NAD/NADH ratio. It is this lowering of the NAD/NADH ratio that causes the cell death in Parkinson’s. So, what if there was a way to maintain and even increase the ratio without having to resort to drugs that block PARP1? It turns out that there are all kinds of ways.
Two safe and easy ways to increase the NAD/NADH ratio are regular aerobic exercise and intermittent fasting. Another way is to take any of the following natural substances, all of which have been shown to increase the ratio: the B-vitamin niacin, bitter melon, curcumin, fish oil, thyroid hormone, nitric oxide boosters, alpha lipoic acid, quercetin, and cannabis. Finally, as I have been teaching for over two decades, one of the major therapeutic actions of ozone therapy is to increase the ratio.
So, if you have Parkinson’s, or better yet, if you don’t have Parkinson’s but just want to avoid getting it, think about working with your doctor to find the right combination for you. You can find doctors trained in ozone therapy at aaot.us.