Quote:
Originally Posted by ol'cs
Over the decades we have seen many such convincingly bogus "treatments" for PD. There are many scammers out there, some who try awfully hard to seem legitimate. Only real evidence endures as treatments for PD, and so far the best neurologists in the world are attempting to resolve PD. They are not screwing around with stupid contraptions, whose methods and theory just don't make sense to the laws of nature. Infra red light is essentially just heat, which will simply be absorbed by your skin, and can't be "focussed" to probe any internal structure deep in our brainstems. Just like Mexican stem cell clinics and all other scams that are based on fleecing you because you are ill and desperate. These scams follow a simple path. Find some bujllshitt to baffle the audience with and get some suckers who buy in. If we aren't bestowed with anything better to control the horror that PD can be, as of right now in time, then the answer is a great deal of thought and experimentation is being put into pd, but real accomplishments towards this goal will, as always come slowly, and we'd here about any real breakthroughs and the knowledge would travel quickly, and we would be told to get ready for a real game changer. So in the meantime, go ahead and take all the mucuna pruriens, vitamin supplements, excercise and other proven ways of dealing with PD, Please, no waste papa's money on snake oil.
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I hope that I am not a sucker--I really think I am taking a logical approach to this. But if you think that only neurologists are the only people capable of evaluating the evidence to support potential new therapies, then you might want to take a look at the following abstract from the MDS 17th International Congress of Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders in Stockholm:
http://www.mdsabstracts.com/abstract...=798&id=107103
And you might also find the following article informative:
The potential of light therapy in Parkinson’s disease
https://www.dovepress.com/getfile.php?fileID=19055
"Functional restoration
Not only does light therapy protect against the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons, but it also appears to restore func- tional activity to those neurons that are saved. For example, light therapy has been shown to correct abnormal neuronal activity generated by the parkinsonian condition.85 Using Fos immunohistochemistry (a well-established measure of neuronal activity), the overactivity of neuronal firing in the subthalamic nucleus and zona incerta (two key basal ganglia nuclei) characteristic of parkinsonian cases has been reported to be reduced substantially after light therapy. This reduction does not quite reach control levels, indicating that the restora- tion is partial, and has been attributed to the surviving SNc dopaminergic neurons being functionally active, continu- ing to produce and release dopamine at their terminals in the striatum.85 These early functional results could be built upon by further electrophysiological and pharmacological explorations."
I understand your anger at all of the therapies that promise bogus cures, but the evidence I have collected to date on this topic seems very promising. It might not work as well as the research indicates, and I don't think it will cure anyone of Parkinson's, but appears to slow progression, mitigate alpha synuclein deposition, reduce neuroinflammation, and increase ATP output from the surviving dopaminergic cells.
If any of us wait around for traditional MDs to save us with some sort of miracle, we will also have to wait years for clinical trials, as well as FDA approval. Not to mention that I have seen miracles in my profession (neurofeedback) on a daily basis with OCD, depression, ADD, Anxiety, etc etc. How many people know that depression and anxiety can be treated without medication using EEG biofeedback? How many people in the mainstream culture have ever even heard of neurofeedback?
Since Parkinson's is a progressive illness, I would rather experiment with therapies that don't work than do nothing. I was afraid to do anything with my dad until I realized this point. And while I appreciate your valid level of frustration of staking hope in purported therapies that have failed you over and over again, I am cautiously optimistic about LED technology. But given the remarkable amount of research that points to a potentially amazing technology, most of which has been studied by researchers with 0 financial interest in propagating snake oil, I am left with the hope that at the very least, it appears to possibly slow progression of Parkinson's, and at the best, offer a slight reduction of symptoms.