1. On Shaking and PD
French Dr. Jean Martin Charcot (11/29/1825-08/16/1893), considered "the father" of modern neurology, was told by some of his "shaking palsy" patients who came to see him from outside Paris, how they felt better after particularly "bumpy" train rides. He took the idea seriously enough as to build a "chaise trepidante" or "shaking chair" which was a wooden chair mounted on a wheel with a crank to simulate a bumpy train ride. He experimented with it for a while but later abandoned the idea.

2. From news wires:

" Doctor Embarks on Parkinson's Research
By Caryn Rousseau, The Washington Post
The Associated Press
May 17, 2004

LITTLE ROCK - Searching for a treatment for her Parkinson's disease, Anne James found it nearly 2,500 miles from her Vancouver home. Anne and her husband Ron James found Arkansas cardiologist Dr. Charles Fitzgerald, who inadvertently found a way to ease Parkinson's symptoms using an Enhanced External Counterpulsation (EECP) machine.

Anne, 67, couldn't comb her own hair. Now she can. She loved to play the piano. Now she taps away and sings along. Smelling a flower was difficult. Not anymore.

"When I went down there I was dragging my left foot," Anne said. "Not anymore. My sense of smell improved."

The progress began two years ago, and she says she is still benefiting from Fitzgerald's therapy without an increase in medication. Fitzgerald is on to something, her husband says.

"He has something with that machine," Ron James said. "There is something that that machine does and it needs to be researched immediately."

That's Fitzgerald's plan. He said he's talking with doctors across the country and hopes to set up a study on how a machine used to treat patients with angina and heart blockage could possibly help others with Parkinson's.

"We can say this improves the quality of life for people with Parkinson's," Fitzgerald said. "That's a definite. Does it cure Parkinson's? We don't know."

The beneficial efffects of EECP on PD was confirmed by more than 60 PD patients who underwent EECP treatments afterwards.
While the EECP machine's intended purpose is the improvement of blood flow, it involves as a side effect, a vigorous and otherwise not necessarily pleasant (but beneficial in the case of PD) whole body shaking.

3. Noted PD specialist, Dr. Abe Lieberman, who visited with Dr Fitzgerald to familiarize himself with EECP, submitted a group of his PD patients to a treatment of "back and forth alternating movement" on a "moving bed" designed by Dr. Marvin Sackner and obtained results comparable to those of EECP.
Dr. Lieberman provides a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between exercise. both active (as in walking, running, dancing, bycicling, swimming, etc., and "passive exercise" (as EECP, Moving Bed, Blood Pressure Modulation" (for bedridden or otherwise immobile patients), the biochemical processes at play in exercise, on several articles at: ParkinsonResearchFoundation.org

4. Recently, Ed Phillips, a heart patient (and inventor), not very fond of undergoing multiple by-pass surgery. only option he was being offered, devised a semi-active way of heart conditioning/recovery which he called "rhitmic limb elevation", which helped him and his wife.
Later, at the request of a couple of PD patients who had benefited from the EECP treatments provided by Dr. Fitzgerald, he modified the concept to a "deceivingly simpler" of "blood modulation". When tried on PD patients, Ed's blood modulation therapy's gravity recliner provided significant alleviation of symptoms.

5. As for energetic cycling, famous parkie Jim Wetherell, of INever give up.org reports how he has kept his PD at bay by taking up competitive tricicling.

6. In an analysis of data from the Cancer Prevention Study II Nutrition Cohort, including more than 143,000 men and women, has shown a reduced risk of Parkinson's disease (PD) associated with moderate to vigorous exercise. No protective effect was seen with light exercise such as walking, the researchers, with first author Evan L. Thacker, from the Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston, Massachusetts, noted.

So, there.....