Interesting article on researching amyloid fiber formation:

http://www.hhmi.org/news/weissman4.html

I am unfamiliar with Parkinson's Disease so please indulge me in a bit of brainstorming. Please forgive me if I am rehashing old familiar stuff. Here goes.

If Parkinson's has to do with amyloid plaques and amyloid plaques have to do with prions and prions have to do with mad cow disease, then the following article might be of interest - "A Case for the Role of Copper Deficiency in "Mad-Cow" Disease and Human Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease"

http://www.copper.org/innovations/2001/12/mad-cow.html

On the basis of the above article, could one ask the question, does Parkinsons have anything to do with not enough copper and too much manganese?

Hi Wasabi,
First of all, please be warned: don't believe everything you read about what causes or prevents PD. The truth is: nobody knows!
As I understand it so far, PD is basically a combination of disorders caused by the malfunctioning of the basal ganglia. Said part of the brain can be damaged in many ways, i.e. viral infections, head or neck trauma, exposure to pesticides, contaminated water, heavy metals, genetic mutations or all of it together. Whatever the cause of the lesion, the set of neurological symptons (some of them common to other neurodegenerative diseases like MS) are known as Parkinson's Disease. The copper connection comes after the low-iron levels theory we've been hearing about and the mercury, lead and other metal poisoning theories, etc. It all has to be looked into, of course, but it's yet another theory that will swallow research funds and no conclusions will be drawn, because PD has no one single cause.
Take care

but more so if combined with other factors. Prions, for example, could indeed be a factor.

But it is a mistake to think in terms of a "cause" for PD in that it is almost certain that it can be "caused" by multiple combinations of factors. My combination will be different than, say, Paula's. But the syndrome that we know as PD is more or less the same because the intermediate processes are the same, i.e. inflammation, for example. One of the problems we face is the single cause mindset has us directing scarce research funds into searching for a single cure/single cause entity. It's like looking for the guy who robbed the bank when it was a gang of ten.

Teretxu and reverett123,

Thanks for your responses. I shall try to be on the lookout for multiple causes contributing to Parkinson's. So far I'm thinking - not enough copper and/or too much manganese; inherited weaknesses; fluoride toxicity; Lyme disease.

"Dr. Mattman states 'I’m convinced Lyme disease is transmissible from person to person.' In 1995 Dr. Mattman obtained positive cultures for Bb from 43 of 47 persons with chronic illness. Only 1 of 23 control patients had a positive Bb culture. Dr. Mattman has subsequently recovered Bb spirochetes form 8 out of 8 cases of Parkinson’s Disease, 41 cases of multiple sclerosis, 21 cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and all tested cases of Alzheimer’s Disease."

http://www.samento.com.ec/sciencelib...endhowens.html

There is some evidence that one of the Lyme disease bacteria may cause amyloid deposits:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q..._uids=15665404

By the way, in case you're interested, the following link discusses the possible connections between Lyme disease and multiple sclerosis:

http://www.lymeinfo.net/multiplesclerosis.html