[Conductor71]

As most of us here, I have been slightly er, preoccupied with how us lucky group of people hit the PD lotto. I believe in the multiple hit theory but couldn't at first grasp the environmental aspect for my particular PD pathway. As I haven't had much pesticide exposure, I am a city gal, one who grew up in the Motor City. I naturally started looking at air pollution and after some research posted here on MMT the particulate matter from car exhaust that comprises mainly Manganese particles. Well, we know that exposure to Manganese used in welding can cause Parkinsonism. If give the right environment, why couldn't long term exposure to this gasoline additive cause neurological damage? I posted some early studies indicating that it could very well play a part in developing PD. Here is my original post:http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...ight=manganese

Well, look at this research that I did not see in Pubmed the first time around (thanks to Paula's link to Kurzweil we now have this gem I would say that here lies one of my smoking guns; not only did I grow up in the city of Detroit...my house backed up to a freeway!


Long-term air pollution exposure is associated with neuroinflammation, an altered innate immune response, disruption of the blood-brain barrier, ultrafine particulate deposition, and accumulation of amyloid beta-42 and alpha-synuclein in children and young adults.




Trends Neurosci. 2009 Sep;32(9):506-16. Epub 2009 Aug 26.
Air pollution: mechanisms of neuroinflammation and CNS disease.

So we have air pollution as Ultra Fine Particulate Matter that is taken in through the olfactory bulb (right in line with Braak) and readily crosses the blood brain barrier. MMT is a known neurotoxin, yet the EPA does nothing?

Can we assume that we would show elevated manganese levels? I'm now be ginning to see how all the pieces fit together, but the main thing for all us is to stop the alpha-synuclein aggregation,right? Well, as I say this my little boy is in his sandbox in the yard breathing in the same particulates...and I seriously am contemplating a move West or wearing gas masks or something. I wonder how remaining in a more polluted environment contributes to our rate of decline?

Laura

[reverett123]

Laura-
You are on the right track but you need to widen your net just a little. Yes, ultra fine particulates are a major part of the problem. But it isn't just manganese. These particulates are so incredibly tiny that they can ride the conveyor systems that are inside the individual neurons. Not only can they enter via the olfactory bulb as Braack suggested, they can be swallowed and enter via the stomach wall, his other suggested route. Being decidedly foreign, they trigger inflammation on both sides of the BBB among those already "primed" by earlier immune challenge and the microglia do the rest.And in such an environment, stress further adds to the inflammatory pressures.

Coal is one source of particulates and the coal smoke of London during the Industrial Revolution is still remembered.

Two other literary references that are most likely to be PD are from China circa 800 BC and the Indus Valley circa 4000 BC. The former is still remembered for the huge bronze castings produced and the latter for the mastery of copper smelting. Both those required sooty charcoal fires.

[marciaj]

I grew up on a highway but so did my 6 siblings and so far I'm the only one with PD. Two of my siblings lived on the highway during adulthood also and they are 9 and 10 years older then I am.

I read an article once that said not even the most remote island is pollution free now. You might be able to find a spot that has less pollution but can't escape completely. We are all in this together I'm afraid.

[Conductor71]

Originally Posted by marciaj

I grew up on a highway but so did my 6 siblings and so far I'm the only one with PD. Two of my siblings lived on the highway during adulthood also and they are 9 and 10 years older then I am.

I read an article once that said not even the most remote island is pollution free now. You might be able to find a spot that has less pollution but can't escape completely. We are all in this together I'm afraid.

Marcia,

I agree with you but I'd tweak it and say we're in the same leaky boat together, but got here different ways. I am only looking at MMT as one major player; all of us, other than the monogenetic PD groups, likely have a mix of genetics and environmental insult. For me, it may have been viral, chronic exposure to air pollution, and I know a fall I took in an ice storm a few years ago pushed me over the edge.

BTW, they are finding that PWP have unique genomic pathways to the disease; with sporadic PD, it's not about having one mutation; we have multiple genetic glitches that have a domino effect when pushed...each one tagging the next one and so on. The pushes come from viral or bacterial infections, and MMT or Rotenone, in utero exposure to lipopolysaccharides, possibly a head injury... Whatever it takes to kindle that inflammation and keep it going.

I am thinking the reason your siblings don't likely have it is you all have different genomes and other unique environmental things going on. So the bad news is there very likely is no one cause to this disease, but the good news is we all end at same place more or less with inflammation and a lot of alpha synuclein infectlng our healthy neurons. So right now a cure means stopping the alpha-synuclein. This means the vaccine being readied for clinical trials may actually work!

Look at this map. Red areas all have high disease prevalence, though I wonder no red near Los Angeles.....hhmmm.

http://www.physorg.com/news183835229.html

So I guess I am wondering what has to happen before the substance is banned? Can we get tested for manganese levels?

Marcia, I hear ya on the no escaping pollution, but in looking at that map I can't help but wonder how a change in environment, while there is still pollution but less of it because fewer people, mighat help.

Laura

[pkell]

I spent my childhood in LA in the 60s before air was important. One of my most vivid memories was walking home from the swimming pool in the summer. The air would be so brown you could see it. The walk home was slightly up hill for about eight or nine blocks. By the time I got home breathing was so painful all I could do was lie down and wait.

We went to the pool every day practically, the whole summer and my house was a block from the freeway.

I was in southern California again some 35 years later and marveled at the magnificence of the Sierra Madres. I had rarely seen them as a child.

[lindylanka]

Smog in the UK in the fifties had to be seen to be believed. Vividly remember walking from the school my mum taught at in the thickest pea souper you could imagine, you literally could not see one step ahead, and the street light suddenly showed as these deep yellowy-grey pools of almost light, then disappeared again..... very spooky indeed.... and they were quite common in a coal-fueled industrial world.....

Today the smogs can be almost invisible sometimes, but are choking anyway. We had a smog warning last week, I was out of breath and wheezy after half an hour out, not my usual state at all..... didn't realize till I watched the weather warnings that I had encountered an old enemy...

Lindy