We only understood this phrase when we got to know his case better and over the years. My vision of Michael J Fox will be forever linked to my father's fight against Parkinson's from 1994 to 2012.

After the death of Pope Karol Wojtila or John Paul II in 2005, my father turned his attention to another famous figure with Parkinson's disease as well: Canadian and American actor Michael J. Fox, famous for his films (Back to the Future) and his television series. Although he was much younger than my father was, the figure of the boxer Mohamed Ali (Cassius Clay to my father's generation) was a bit distant because he assumed that his parkinsonism was pugilistic, that is, because of repeated blows to the head throughout his career as a boxer. However, Fox's Parkinson's seemed a mystery, a challenge. We both liked each other very much.


1. Years and events in the life of Michael J. Fox.


A brief chronology of his life can help us better understand everything:

1961 Birth.

1976-1980 TV studies in Vancouver (possible "cluster" of juvenile Parkinson's patients: 4 out of 125).

1987 Suffers from Lyme disease (produces parkinsonian symptoms).

1990 Tremor in a finger.

1991 Diagnosis and treatment (abuses Sinemet to maintain his career).

1993 Treatment to accept the disease and stop alcoholism.

1998 He goes public with his disease and has an operation (thalamotomy).


2. Inspiration and hope for many and for my father.

Moreover, the Foundation he had created in 2000 with his name was one of the most important sources of hope both for finding more effective treatments with fewer adverse effects and for curing this disease, since as he was the sick actor himself, nobody could be more interested in finding a cure than he himself, above economic and other interests (as his illness progressed, my father became more distrustful).

In fact, every day I visited the Michael J. Fox Foundation website and translated the most interesting news for my father.

As a Parkinson's patient, we found Michael J. Fox's case very motivating, even exciting because of the unknown information we were discovering.

It wasn't until 1998 that he went public with the disease because he was afraid it would hurt his acting career (People magazine).

Between 1976 and 1980 he recorded a Canadian television series in Vancouver called "Leo & Me", which would lead to the hypothesis of a Parkinson's "cluster", as 4 of the 125 team members developed the disease relatively young.

In 1987 he suffered from Lyme disease (from tick bites and the toxic effect of the "Borrelia burgdoferi" bacteria), which he acknowledged to David Letterman on his television show, was treated with only four weeks of antibiotics. The toxins produced in this disease affect the central nervous system and are associated with Parkinson's symptoms.

By 1990 his little finger had begun to tremble. He was 29 years old and went to the doctor and in 1991 he was diagnosed with Parkinson's. He started taking levodopa (Sinemet) and, he later acknowledged in the journal, abused the medication to gain more control over his symptoms and to cope with his film and television commitments.

In 1993 he underwent psychological or psychiatric treatment to accept his illness and stop the alcoholism he had suffered from at a very young age (as he confessed on the "David Letterman Show").

The abuse of medication led him to need a surgical intervention in 1998: a thalamotomy.

The medical case of Michael J. Fox may date back to the late 1970s, when he shot a television series in Canada, in the underground television studios of Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada). In those years he was under great stress, shooting day and night for film and television. Alcohol consumption may have played a role in the wear and tear on his brain cells.

What's really strange is that other teammates from that time also developed Parkinson's at an early age, which was less frequent in those years, so some authors have raised the possibility of a "cluster". There were 4 out of 125 that made up the team.

A regular consumer of diet or light colas since the 1970s, he is still advertising today. The abuse of drinks containing aspartame, which is used as a sweetener in soft drinks and low-calorie foods, has been linked to Parkinson's, although the debate continues (Dr. Russell Blaylock considers it as an excitotoxin).

3. A possible "cluster" in his youth.

Strong stress at such a young age, alcoholism from adolescence, perhaps exaggerated consumption of diet soda (caffeine and aspartame), Lyme disease at 26-27 years and some other aspects of his personality, may have led Michael J. Fox to suffer from juvenile or early-onset Parkinson's disease at 29 years of age.

In an article written by Mary Duenwald for the "New York Times" on May 14, 2002, the famous Dr. Oliver Sacks spoke about this news stating that if the existence of a "cluster" in Vancouver was confirmed it could suggest an environmental or occupational agent, both infectious and toxic.

Decades ago, Parkinson's cases at an early age were much less frequent than they are now, according to interviews in North American newspapers by Dr. Carolinne Tanner (famous for her studies on twins and tobacco) and Dr. Donald B. Clarke (the odds of developing Parkinson's were 1 in 20,000 in a group of 125 people at that age).


4. One final thought.

At this point, I have mixed feelings about the actor Michael J. Fox. Just because he have Parkinson's, I like him. I have admiration and respect for his fight against the disease at such a young age.

But I also feel somewhat disappointed. My father trusted that "Michael" would find "something" until the very day of his death. I don't know if I'm being unfair in saying this, but I expected a lot more. I don't know if we will have another opportunity like this: someone famous, capable of mobilizing a lot of resources and worldwide public attention.

To imagine Michael J. Fox speaking in public about green tea polyphenols to prevent the disease, about the central role of homocysteine in everything related to Parkinson's and its reduction with vitamin B9, about the possibility of preventing it or slowing down its evolution with glutathione, vitamin D, etc... would have been an overwhelming force, an unimaginable influence on the whole world.

Because our battle is not only against Parkinson's disease, but against certain aspects of the Parkinson's world. We need to change a lot of things. First of all, the way we look at the disease.

I am convinced of the goodness and courage of Michael J. Fox. So I still expect great things from him and his Foundation. Although I also understand that it is extremely difficult.

A recent book -Ending Parkinson's Disease: A Prescription for Action- by Todd Sherer, a CEO of the Michael J. Fox Foundation with the three authors of the 2018 study, Dorsey, Bloem and Okun (about the Parkinson's "pandemic" we are living through, -The Emerging Evidence of the Parkinson Pandemic-), fills me with hope. And I wish them much luck in their endeavors.

The biggest lesson I can draw from his case is that possibly all the risk factors that could have influenced Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's were preventable with what we know today: alpha-lipoic acid, green tea polyphenols, folic acid, vitamin D, vitamin B6, large doses of vitamins C and E (including tocotrienols), NAC as a way to raise glutathione that has not been found in the SN from parkinsonian autopsies, silymarin from milk thistle for the liver, etc. All this is supported by scientific studies of neurologists and other prestigious researchers (Fahn, Olanow, Ahlskog, Karobath, Birkmayer, Suzuki, Lombard, Marjama-Lyons, Siniscalchi, Monti, etc.)

Whatever happens, I wish you the best as a person and as a Parkinson's patient.