This we can all do! Exercise and enrich our environment!
"Another appealing strategy, on both the biological and economical fronts for the treatment of PD, involves harnessing endogenous mechanisms to complement, if not supplant, gene therapeutic strategies.
Beyond the perhaps more “subjective” benefits of exercise to the quality of life of PD patients ([Baatile et al., 2000], [Crizzle and Newhouse, 2006], Dibble et al., 2006 L.E. Dibble, T.F. Hale, R.L. Marcus, J. Droge, J.P. Gerber and P.C. LaStayo, High-intensity resistance training amplifies muscle hypertrophy and functional gains in persons with Parkinson's disease, Mov. Disord. 21 (2006), pp. 1444–1452.
..exercise may enhance the CNS-intrinsic protective mechanisms that may prove useful as an adjunct to other therapies. Mild stressors, including exercise and dietary restriction, have been shown to be neuroprotective in a number of animal models of CNS disorders, perhaps via effects on increasing neurogenesis and/or neurotrophin levels (reviewed in Mattson et al. (2004)).
More specific to PD, both exercise ([Fisher et al., 2004], [Petzinger et al., 2007] and [Tillerson et al., 2003]) and environmental enrichment ([Faherty et al., 2005], [Steiner et al., 2006] and [Urakawa et al., 2007]) enhance functional recovery in rodent neurotoxicant models of the disease, while exercise has been shown to enhance plasma IL-10 levels in human PD patients (Cadet et al., 2003).
Thus, a more complete understanding of both the intrinsic neurogenic capabilities of the areas affected in PD and the endogenous mechanisms that can modulate these activities is necessary to further therapeutic development.
Regardless, as appears to be the case in many if not all chronic diseases, early lifestyle alterations (exercise, diet, etc.) may be an important first line of defense in either preventing or attenuating PD pathogenic processes, as well as enhancing therapeutic efficacy."
From:
Gazing into the future: Parkinson's disease gene therapeutics to modify natural history 2007
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...aa6bc60b937357
Environmental enrichment in adulthood eliminates neuronal death in experimental Parkinsonism
Ciaran J. Faherty, Kennie Raviie Shepherd, Anna Herasimtschuk and Richard J. Smeyne
Accepted 27 August 2004.
Abstract
Idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) affects 2% of adults over 50 years of age. PD patients demonstrate a progressive loss of dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc). One model that recapitulates the pathology of PD is the administration of 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP).
Here we show that exposure to an enriched environment (EE) (a combination of exercise, social interactions and learning) or exercise alone during adulthood, totally protects against MPTP-induced Parkinsonism.
Furthermore, changes in mRNA expression would suggest that increases in glia-derived neurotrophic factors, coupled with a decrease of dopamine-related transporters (e.g. dopamine transporter, DAT; vesicular monoamine transporter, VMAT2), contribute to the observed neuroprotection of dopamine neurons in the nigrostriatal system following MPTP exposure. This non-pharmacological approach presents significant implications for the prevention and/or treatment of PD.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...94788&ref=full