Yes, indeed on the connection! Anne Frobert, the French MD and PWP who drops in occasionally, and I got into that quite deeply. Want to know something funny? PD is not a disease of the nervous system. It is the combined disorders of the endocrine (stress), immune (inflammation), and GI (toxins) systems doing damage to the nervous system. A subtle distinction, at least until you try to reallocate the research funding!

There is more depth at http://www.parkinsonsonline.org/PD_Outline_Index.html but, briefly, if we are exposed to bacterial toxins in the womb at just the right time, then we are born with extra sensitivity to further exposure. Since that particular toxin is everywhere, the inevitable result is inflammation. How much depends on our individual sensitivity (one reason that not everyone gets PD).

At the same time a similar sensitizing of our stress response can take place through exposure to maternal stress hormones. Our controls get set wrong.

Both these vulnerabilities last into childhood and even past puberty because areas of our brain remain "plastic" until then. We did a poll on the old BT of twenty of us and, as a general rule, we had all been through hell as children in one form or another.

So, in a nutshell, we go through life with inflammation releasing cytokines, neuron damaging chemicals. The body responds by releasing anti-inflammatory cortisol, another neuron damaging chemical. Meanwhile, stress releases more cortisol AND also triggers more inflammation. <I swear I don't know how endocrinologists stay sane.>

Inflammation leads to leaky gut and also leaky BBB. Toxins seep out of the GI tract and end up in the brain. The sensitized immune cells there go ape and neurons die in the crossfire.

Now, that is a ten cent explanation of a dollar subject (as you will see if you follow that link to the outline) but the bottom line by the time we end up here is inflammation and stress. We can't just throw corticoids at it because that adds to the damage. We have to take a broader, dare I say "wholistic", approach.

Destress our lives - the earlier the better.
Reduce cortisol with things like gingko and ginseng.
Reduce inflammation with things like curcumin.
Calm down the little warriors in the brain with things like green tea.
Take care of ourselves the same way that we took care of others all our lives.

Hmm...what was the question?