LFAC,

I hadn't even thought of that, so thank you. I ran across a recent dissertation from 2007 titled aptly enough:

Brain Iron Accumulation in Parkinson's Disease: An Investigation of Genes ...
By Shannon Leigh Rhodes

She has found a correlation between consumption of meat in childhood and PD later in life. It also brought to mind that study done in Argentina where PWP greatly improved on B2 vitamins. I recall a requirement was that participants had to cut out all red meat. Or, am I imagining that? It comes to mind because I don't think it was ever explained.

So it seems dietary excess of iron is hard to avoid save for consciously giving up red meat. It is all this processed food contributing to disease. I did read some secondhand info but not seen the original research on it that drinking milk was linked to PD later as well; something about the excess vitamin D. That seems crazy because we all test now as vitamin D deficient! However, I am learning all there are all sorts of paradoxes involved in medicine and in what we put in our bodies. For example, people with excess iron in their organas show less in their bloodstream and sometimes show as anemic. Weird, never would have though that!

To avoid any excess iron, we would have to be on practically macrobiotic diet!

If if it were all so easy as iron chelation... I am beginning think that if this theory were to pan out that PD is primarily a vascular disorder and that the brain is affected way later on in the disease, much like the genetic disorders where people cannot process iron or copper. I am convinced iron plays a role as only the neuromelanin neurons that process iron are implicated and alpha-synuclein is thought to be involved in metal metabolism.

An aside: Not long after I was diagnosed my mom went to a psychic. My mom mentioned my illness and she actually responded with "she has too much iron in her system". Normally, I scoff at that kind of thing, but now it weirds me out. Of all the metals it could be, she nailed iron. Too weird.

Laura