[CarolynS]

Breakthrough in genetics 'to further Parkinson's research'

Barchester, 17/12/2010
http://www.barchester.com/Healthcare...ch%27/376/3958

Research has found that changes in an inherited neural protein are responsible for the development of Parkinson's.

[lurkingforacure]

I hate to be cynical, especially at this time of year, but really, we have known about genetic causes of PD for years. Even the PINK1 gene has been known about for a long time. So how is this "discovery" propelling research further? They make it sounds like it's some bombshell no one has even thought about and that this new insight will somehow send PD research into the next millenia. Please.

Besides, again this is not news to anyone here, the number of people with genetic PD is very small compared to those suffering from what they call idiopathic PD. I don't mean to belittle either, or suggest one is worse than the other: but the point is: this research will affect very few people with PD unless a much greater percentage of PWP than I understand to have genetic PD have this mutation.

Am I missing something here? The only thing I can think of is perhaps what the researchers really found is that everyone has the PINK1 gene, but that over time, for some reason, it changes in certain people, and that's what "causes" PD, as they put it. TIF so, then we will have the same problem: what causes those changes? We're still where we are now, not knowing what really sets PD into play. I'd love to be corrected here, so educate me where I'm wrong...

[CarolynS]

Hey, I just post news that MAY be pertinent to our disease. I don't post it because I think it is a good thing; it is just something that was in the news today or yesterday.

If anyone feels that they would prefer to find their own news items, please say so now and I will cease.

Thanks for the input.

to all.

[Conductor71]

Originally Posted by digger

Hey, I just post news that MAY be pertinent to our disease. I don't post it because I think it is a good thing; it is just something that was in the news today or yesterday.

If anyone feels that they would prefer to find their own news items, please say so now and I will cease.

Thanks for the input.

to all.

Digger,

Try not to take personally; I think we all appreciate your posts and just because I may remember a topic, thirty others may be seeing it for the first time through your post. It may be new to them, but the rest of have grown weary with research that seems to go nowhere. So it especially smarts when the media, starved for any new disease related news, recycles old information an passes off as new. Frankly, I have become so jaded by
lack of progress that I scarcely pay attention to anything that mentions "breakthrough" or "discovery".

What we all really want to hear is how this applies to any of us. When will they start applying what they know to work toward helping people now? That vaccine is the only novel thing we have going on, and I have a feeling that based on our disease etiologies, we will have different levels of responsiveness to a vaccine. The media would better serve in looking more closely at how this might transform our lives in light of fact that little has changed in 50 years...has anyone even heard of this reported in popular science sources?

Further, those sources that recycle and repackage PD research would better serve us by maybe just reviewing the corpus of med literature that shows how researchers have all been saying essentially the same key things for the last few decades: an inflammatory process is happening it involves aggregated proteins, nitric oxide, faulty mitochondria; PD takes a long time to to reveal itself; it has multiple origins with most likely scenario of localized infection plus brain injury or toxin plus genetics being the culprit; there are lots of anecdotal links to auto immune system as a key player. This would be helpful; as would someone coming forward to write an annual review of all things PD.

My input is to please keep posting but realize that some of us might recognize old research being recycled as new. That is what we don't like is how misleading that is to us.

Laura

[lurkingforacure]

Digger,

No offense for sure, it's as Laura said. But I don't expect media to change because that would require them to have reporters who are a heck of a lot better than they are now, which would require actually paying them much more. Probably not gonna happen. To report as Laura suggested would knock out most reporters currently hired, as I doubt very few could or would do the research she mentioned or have the brain power to digest it. Heck, most of us here have a hard time fully understanding some of the stuff out there, and we have a much more vested interested in doing so than a reporter.

It's good to know Fox funded this recently, so thanks for sharing it. I'd love to see the data on how much improvement was seen in the various stages of the disease, as the article mentions in early disease there was actually improvement (a cure) but in later stages only progression was stopped. I wonder if improvement would also have been seen in the later stage rodents if the observation period had lasted longer?