Given our look at the role of antibiotics and their huge potential as therapy for mediating the inflammatory process that underlies our disorder, I thought I'd look into estrogens a little more. Turns out there is compelling evidence both anecdotal and clinical that this line of treat should be pursued. Again, where are the clinical trials? The bigger question is why don't we start asking our doctors and researchers these questions? I am so weary of finding all these promising avenues for really making huge inroads into this disease; why aren't we out there sharing this on CNN, YouTube, Facebook, etc? The squeaky wheel does get noticed. I am getting very close to contacting the MS patients running their own trials...

I can say from experience that hormones do have a profound impact; my story is that of several others ...hormonal changes can be harmful, and I know there is the cancer risk factor. Still, how hard can it to be to study some rats on a low dose of estradiol both before and after MPTP induced Parkinsonism?

I had a child around 15 months ago. I became pregnant shortly after my PD diagnosis and my neurologist assured me that despite the misgivings of my family and me (PD is systemic after all), my neurologist asserted that pregnancy would not negatively impact my PD. She was wrong and worse, it took my high-risk OB-GYN and some residents to run the Medline search that indicated otherwise. Given that PD and pregnancy are rarely experienced at the same time, there are not large samples- in 25 women maybe 15 experienced a permanent worsening. I took a leap of faith, but that small number was important, I permanently declined as well. Nothing drastic, but I went to a mld intermittent action tremor and minimal meds to eating Sinemet. Not to mention that the majority of YOPD moms I know worsened. In fact, one mom didn't exhibit any motor symptoms of PD until she delivered. The benefit potential is there; we need researchers pursuing this now.

There is a lot out there on the neuroprotective role of hormones; here is an abstract that covers the basics on estrogen:

Semin Reprod Med. 2009 May;27(3):240-9. Epub 2009 Apr 28.

Estradiol is a potent protective, restorative, and trophic factor after brain injury.
Brown CM, Suzuki S, Jelks KA, Wise PM.

Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. canbrown@u.washington.edu

Abstract
Estrogens are a group of pleiotropic steroid hormones that exhibit diverse mechanisms of action in multiple physiologic systems. Over the past 30 years, biomedical science has begun to appreciate that endogenous estrogens and their receptors display important roles beyond the reproductive system. Our growing appreciation of novel, nonreproductive functions for estrogens has fundamentally contributed to our knowledge of their role in human health and disease. Recent findings from the Women's Health Initiative have caused clinicians and scientists to question whether estrogens are protective factors or risk factors. In light of the dichotomy between basic science and clinical studies, this review will attempt to reconcile differences between them. We will focus on studies from our laboratory and others highlighting the beneficial properties of the most abundant endogenous estrogen, 17beta-estradiol, using in vivo and in vitro models of cerebral ischemia and neuronal injury. These studies demonstrate that 17beta-estradiol powerfully protects the brain using multiple molecular mechanisms that promote: (1) decreased cell death, (2) increased neurogenesis, (3) an enhancement of neurotrophic support, and (4) the suppression of proinflammatory pathways.



Laura

i think i was parkinsonian during my second pregnancy and my menstrual periods never returned. There are articles backing the greater risk of pd if you have a shorter time in "child bearing years". Early menopause was another of my crash operations.

They are definitely related laura. I'l try to dig up some resources. it's documented .

paula

I wondered too about the early menopause; I have just been out of whack since my hormones leveled off- the grey hairs even seem inflamed! lol I keep getting what seem like hot flashes but it is really the levodopa build up in the day side effect, I think.

I took note of that article but realize that I (again) don't fit that mold; I had never been pregnant and I was 41 with my first...and only- I am not going to tempt fate again.

What I don't understand is the PD worsening? According to Lisa Shulman who has published a case study on this topic, our wildly fluctuating estrogen level at the end of term makes a difference. I still do not get how this works. I can see our symptoms seeming milder as estrogen holds the inflammation at bay, so I could see a symptom rebound or worsening as estrogen levels go down, but can't see why they are permanent or a sudden change would accelerate the disease process?

I have also read that testosterone injections help men fight off inflammatory processes.

please keep the studies flowing...

Laura

Well, that's it. I am starting to make a strong case for this. My GP didn''t see what PD and pregnancy are like, but my OB-GYN surely did. I am showing her some studies leading with this one and am getting a low dose estradiol therapy started....

Endocr Rev. 2005 May;26(3):308-12. Epub 2005 Apr 25.

Are estrogens protective or risk factors in brain injury and neurodegeneration? Reevaluation after the Women's health initiative.
Wise PM, Dubal DB, Rau SW, Brown CM, Suzuki S.

Division of Biological Sciences, University of California-Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, California 95616-8536, USA. pmwise@ucdavis.edu

Abstract
Estrogens are essential for normal reproductive function. In addition, they exert important, complex, and diverse nonreproductive actions on multiple tissues. Although accumulating evidence from basic science studies using animal models suggests that estradiol plays a critical neuroprotective role against multiple types of neurodegenerative diseases and injuries, recent clinical studies have reported either inconclusive or untoward effects of hormone therapy on the brain. We focus herein on the work that we have done during the past 6 yr that strongly suggests that low levels of estradiol therapy exert dramatic protective actions in the adult injured brain. Our results reveal that 17beta-estradiol slows the progression of this injury and diminishes the extent of cell death by suppressing apoptotic cell death pathways and enhancing expression of genes that optimize cell survival. Furthermore, we have found that estrogen receptors play a pivotal functional role in neuroprotection. Together, these results carry broad implications for the selective targeting of estrogen receptors in the treatment of neurodegenerative conditions resulting from disease or injury, particularly for aging, postmenopausal women.

dopamine is also a neurohormone...
Dopamine: An Important Neurohormone of the Sympathoadrenal System. Significance of Increased Peripheral Dopamine Release for the Human Stress Response and Hypertension*

http://edrv.endojournals.org/cgi/con...stract/4/3/291


Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that occurs in a wide variety of animals, including both vertebrates and invertebrates. In the brain, this phenethylamine functions as a neurotransmitter, activating the five types of dopamine receptors—D1, D2, D3, D4, and D5—and their variants. Dopamine is produced in several areas of the brain, including the substantia nigra and the ventral tegmental area. Dopamine is also a neurohormone released by the hypothalamus. Its main function as a hormone is to inhibit the release of prolactin from the anterior lobe of the pituitary.

Dopamine can be supplied as a medication that acts on the sympathetic nervous system, producing effects such as increased heart rate and blood pressure. However, because dopamine cannot cross the blood-brain barrier, dopamine given as a drug does not directly affect the central nervous system. To increase the amount of dopamine in the brains of patients with diseases such as Parkinson's disease and dopa-responsive dystonia, L-DOPA, which is the precursor of dopamine, can be given because it can cross the blood-brain barrier.


Prolactinoma is a pituitary adenoma that overproduces prolactin. In Sheehan's syndrome of postpartum hypopituitarism, the anterior pituitary uniformly malfunctions and underproduces all hormones.

Proper function of the anterior pituitary and of the organs it regulates can often be ascertained via blood tests that measure hormone levels.
Source(s):
wikipedia

In large part, whether something is called a neurotransmitter, a hormone, or a cytokine depends on the specialty of who first found it. All three are neuroactive (can trigger neurons)and many can work in two or even all three systems (nervous, endocrine, immune). And the nervous system isn't always the boss - i.e. when epinephrine takes over or you can't move because you feel so sick.

That's one of the problems with PD. The neuro doesn't think in terms of hormones or cytokines bubbling away in the brain. It is all one darned system and we have to come to terms with the whole.

I will entitled it, as I have in the book I am writing"

"What is L_DOPA & the California Story and other Link's ... "

"dopamine - is a neurohormone...

my mom told me they believed PD was caused from damage done to the adrenal medulla and that folic acid that comes from the white part of an orange peel is very beneficial to eat, when you have Parkinson's Disease...
see -
(this link rev!) -

http://www.nestle-nutrition.com/Medi...0-3a3bc3edc8fc

when I was a child my mother who had a very high I.Q.
told me about life, she never spoke down to me, so I learned this very early in my life, subjects that were suppose to be well beyond a child at the age of
5's grasp

this is what I basically heard from my Mom about her Aunt Stella dxd with PD, who lived in California - my Great Aunt Stella lived some where around Seal Beach, CA. My Mother thought she was a very lovely woman...

Stella was my Mom's favorite Aunt, she nicknamed my Mother and everyone in the family called her Emmy,
So Emmy went to see Stella after she had 5 children, my father gave her a vacation of her choosing,
so my mother got on a plane and stayed with Stella who lived in Califonia for a week, Stella's husband brought my mother to the Art Linkletter Show,
and Art Linkletter spoke with my Mother in the audience, and asked her where she was from and -
My Mom answered - I am from Saint Joseph, Mo.
I am the mother of 5 children!
Art Linkletter asked her -well who is watching all of your children now? and she laughed and said: Their Father! and Art Linkletter started laughing...

she made the front page of the Saint Joseph Mo. Gazzette, with Art Linkletter...
I heard a true story that Art Linkletter was telling a story about an opportunity came into his life through a friend, who had a very strange idea...Art was invited by his friend to invest in alot of real estate, in California!
but he passed on the greatest opportunity to have income for the rest of his life, - his friend who he's described as being sort of a nut" was - = WALT DISNEY