Come with me on a flight of fantasy for a minute and entertain a radical idea. Suppose that there is, for lack of a better term, a "metabolic pattern" built into our DNA that produces both PD and diabetes (and perhaps other conditions as well) when certain conditions exist.
I ran across an article in
Science Daily. I am going to take some major liberties and completely recycle the article by substituting PD for diabetes:
"
<PD> is caused by an inability of the
<neurons> in the
<substantia nigra> to produce enough of the
<neurotransmitter dopamine> to meet the body's needs.
Central to this is a loss of
<neuronal> function and mass as a result of
<dopamine> resistance (the inability of cells in the body to respond appropriately to
<dopamine>).
New insight into how
<dopamine> resistance leads to loss of
<neuronal> mass has now been provided by studies .....
In the study, in the absence of the protein
<"X">, the symptoms of
<PD> improved in two mouse models of the disease....
<"X"> is a protein that is involved in promoting the death of a cell that is under stress because it is producing more
<dopamine> than it is able to handle.
The authors therefore propose that
<dopamine> resistance causes
<neurons> to make more
<dopamine> than they can handle, such that the stress signaling pathways that activate
<"X"> are initiated and the
<neurons> die....
Mere musings, but does dopamine resistance exist?