i thought this might be of interest. i apologize if the article has already been posted.

http://psychcentral.com/news/2007/03...ow-parkinsons/

here is part of it:

Can Supplement Slow Parkinson’s

By: Psych Central News Editor
on Thursday, Mar, 22, 2007

Reviewed by: John M. Grohol, Psy.D.
on Thursday, Mar, 22, 2007


Researchers announce the initiation of a large-scale clinical trial to learn if a nutritional supplement can slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease (PD). The study is salient because current therapies for PD focus on reducing symptoms rather than changing the course of the disease.
The initiative by the NIH National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) will study creatine, a nutritional supplement identified by Parkinson’s researchers through a new rapid method for screening potential compounds. While creatine is not an approved therapy for PD or any other condition, it is widely thought to improve exercise performance.
The double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase III study is one of the largest PD clinical trials to date. It will enroll 1720 people with early-stage PD at 51 medical centers in the United States and Canada.
“This study is an important step toward developing a therapy that could change the course of this devastating disease,” says Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., director of the NIH.
“The goal is to improve the quality of life for people with Parkinson’s for a longer period of time than is possible with existing therapies.” Currently there is no treatment that has been shown to slow the progression of PD.
The trial is the first large study in a series of NINDS-sponsored clinical trials called NET-PD (NIH Exploratory Trials in Parkinson’s Disease). NINDS has organized this large network of sites to allow researchers to work with PD patients over a long period of time, with a goal of finding effective and lasting treatments. NET-PD builds on a developmental research process—from laboratory research to pilot studies in a select group of patients, to the definitive phase III trial of effectiveness in people with Parkinson’s disease.


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the rest is at the link.