Laura,

Thank you for this line of thought....I got to thinking (and reading labels) as I was grocery shopping, and realized that iron or some derivative thereof is added to so many foods! Bread, flours, cereals, cookies, all the baked goods because they are made with "enriched" flour, and when you think of how much flour-y products we consume (not just bread but pasta (lasagne, spaghetti, and more), soups like chicken noodle and minestrone, then fried foods like chicken, okra, chicken fried steak, etc.....it's scary. We probably get an overdose of iron just from all the iron that is added to foods we either buy at the store or eat at a restaurant. I found that only one of the six different brands of flours on the baking aisle did NOT have iron added to it!

As iron has been added to so many of our foods, and I have to digress and ask, starting when? That would be interesting to learn...it's in infant formula, infant cereal, it's even in the cream of wheat I ate as a child! So we are starting out with an iron excess that only builds as we grow up and no wonder people are getting dx'd with PD earlier and earlier.

I can't help but wonder if there is a connection with iodine. As iron was being added to these foods, iodine was taken out. It used to be that iodine was put into breads and cereals so that people living inland would get enough, but that changed and the powers that be took out iodine and instead put in bromide which is not particularly healthy for us but makes those baked products light and fluffy. Because it's much more important that food taste and look good than be nutritious, we all know. I wonder if there is any relation between PD/neuro conditions and the combination of iron excess and iodine reduction. Brownstein has written extensively about iodine, for those who are interested.

I just thought I'd share that if you are trying to watch your iron intake, it may not be enough to read what's in your vitamin pill-you need to read the ingredient list on everything you buy that's going to go in your mouth to see if it was "fortified" with iron. And they are making those labels smaller and smaller...

LFAC,

I hadn't even thought of that, so thank you. I ran across a recent dissertation from 2007 titled aptly enough:

Brain Iron Accumulation in Parkinson's Disease: An Investigation of Genes ...
By Shannon Leigh Rhodes

She has found a correlation between consumption of meat in childhood and PD later in life. It also brought to mind that study done in Argentina where PWP greatly improved on B2 vitamins. I recall a requirement was that participants had to cut out all red meat. Or, am I imagining that? It comes to mind because I don't think it was ever explained.

So it seems dietary excess of iron is hard to avoid save for consciously giving up red meat. It is all this processed food contributing to disease. I did read some secondhand info but not seen the original research on it that drinking milk was linked to PD later as well; something about the excess vitamin D. That seems crazy because we all test now as vitamin D deficient! However, I am learning all there are all sorts of paradoxes involved in medicine and in what we put in our bodies. For example, people with excess iron in their organas show less in their bloodstream and sometimes show as anemic. Weird, never would have though that!

To avoid any excess iron, we would have to be on practically macrobiotic diet!

If if it were all so easy as iron chelation... I am beginning think that if this theory were to pan out that PD is primarily a vascular disorder and that the brain is affected way later on in the disease, much like the genetic disorders where people cannot process iron or copper. I am convinced iron plays a role as only the neuromelanin neurons that process iron are implicated and alpha-synuclein is thought to be involved in metal metabolism.

An aside: Not long after I was diagnosed my mom went to a psychic. My mom mentioned my illness and she actually responded with "she has too much iron in her system". Normally, I scoff at that kind of thing, but now it weirds me out. Of all the metals it could be, she nailed iron. Too weird.

Laura