I find this interesting and potentially important. I did my own study and did pretty well for a rookie IMHO.
Using PLM's member data, I put together a list of 150 "middle of the road" PWP and asked if thet would take time to answer a set of questions about stress and PD. Of those, 39 agreed. I used a set of 29 questions the core of which asked about stress during six periods of their life covering the period from conception to PD symptom appearance. They rated stress levels from 1 to 5 with 1 being defined as a "normal" stress burden.
The stress levels reported were startling. Over a lifetime, the group averaged a 3. That is, without eliminating anyone, we had triple the stress in our lives compared to normal folk. Further, the amount of stress we had endured corresponded with the sensitivity we had today and the impact on our symptoms.
The document is too big to post here, but you can read it at
http://www.parkinsonsonline.org/foru...286&p=513#p513 or if you email me I will send you a copy.
The comments of the participants is particularly telling and form a mirror image to the discussions on the same subject which we held on the old BT forum. Life has put a lot of us through a meat grinder!
The bottom line is that stress response = endocrine system and research needs to take that into account.
Hm, I just realized that I can upload the charts as attachments and have done so. Now I may be able to paste text in after this. It will be long but maybe interesting.