Maureen, that's very intriguing, isn't it? If you find the paper about the left ventricle having some involvement in PD, please let me know.

I had electrocardiograms every year throughout my working life, but they were always normal, until my my PD tremors started to "parasite" them. However, I have had heart problems since my teenage years. Even though I was good at sports and could keep up with anybody on level ground, I was never able to keep pace with my schoolmates on uphill hikes during school outings. I would become short of breath and arrive among the last, together with the chubby kids, extremely flushed and would take hours to recover my normal complexion.

I always wondered if there was a connexion with my throat and ear infections as a child. I had "strep throat" many times during childhood. It go to the point where the doctor told my parents that I should have my tonsils removed because I could end up with heart problems or rheumatism, but then we moved to Germany and the idea there was that tonsils were protecting us from greater evil, so nothing was done.
Now I wonder...could it all be related? Could a bacterium like the pneumococcus (which also causes meningitis) be at the bottom of it all? A slow and insidious chain of fatal consequences?