CliniCrowd Mannitol-for-PD Webinar Video (March 4th, 2018)
 

CliniCrowd have recently released a new webinar video (36 minutes). Topics covered include background information and first results.

They say they currently have more than 1500 participants (from 42 countries) in the Mannitol-for-PD trial.

Webinar March 4th 2018 New hope for Parkinson's Patients - YouTube

More results from CliniCrowd
 

CliniCrowd have recently released some more results from their Mannitol-for-PD trial. This has triggered a new "mannitol" post on the SoPD blog:

The Mannitol results | The Science of Parkinson's

Mannitol 2 year update
 

It is now 2 years since I joined the CliniCrowd mannitol trial and started taking one level tablespoon of mannitol in my morning mug of coffee.

At this stage, everything is still going really well, but I am still not able to attribute this to any particular medication, supplement, or exercise (if you click on my name you can see all my medications, supplements, and exercises).

As I mentioned previously, CliniCrowd reported earlier this year that only about 80 PwPs are completing the survey every month, and this will obviously have an impact on the quality of the results of the trial.

However, mannitol is relatively inexpensive, and I still find it very easy to add that level tablespoon to my morning coffee, so I will continue to do that (and complete the monthly survey) for the foreseeable future.

Mannitol, specific neuroprotective qualities
 

I believe this is worth a try. However, as a former believer and user (wife) of low dose naltrexone, I can also be skeptical of many of these ncbi/nih papers. But, combined with good doses of curcumin and VD3, mannitol is worth a try for a year.



A Blood-Brain Barrier (BBB) Disrupter Is Also a Potent α-Synuclein (α-syn) Aggregation Inhibitor

Mannitol also exhibited specific neuroprotective qualities in the dopaminergic system of the treated mice, where it was able to restore TH immunoreactivity in the mThy1-α-syn tg mice back to levels comparable with vehicle-treated non-tg mice in the BG. Importantly, mannitol had no general neuroprotective effect on the control non-tg mice.
Mannitol seems to have a preventive ability to inhibit α-syn aggregation, but not a reversive ability. Mannitol was not able to dissolve preformed α-syn aggregates in vitro nor to dissolve α-syn aggregates when dripped on brain sections taken from α-syn tg mice.
Abnormal protein misfolding and aggregation are key features in many neurodegenerative disorders. Interestingly, a decline in the intracellular level of molecular chaperones was shown to increase the levels of abnormally folded proteins inside the cell (39). Therefore, it was proposed that the cell toxicity in neurodegenerative disorders may result from an imbalance between normal chaperone capacity and the production of misfolded protein species (40). Hence, the addition of chemical and molecular chaperones, which are able to stabilize misfolded proteins, was suggested as a therapeutic approach in neurodegenerative disorders (22). In addition to its BBB-disrupting properties, mannitol was previously suggested to function as a chemical chaperone, demonstrating a very potent effect on the stabilization of protein structure (19–21).
Here, we have demonstrated that mannitol interferes with α-syn aggregation in vitro and in vivo, whereas no adverse effects were observed in control-treated flies or mice. In addition to its osmotic diuretic effect, mannitol is known for its BBB-disrupting properties (41). To the best of our knowledge, mannitol has not been tested or used until now in the clinic for drug delivery into the brain. Therefore, we suggest that mannitol administration in combination with other drugs could be a promising new approach for treating PD and other brain-related diseases such as Alzheimer disease. This prediction is based on its chemical chaperone properties, its vast protective cellular capabilities, and its BBB-disrupting properties.

In my "Mannitol 2 year update" I forgot to mention that my sense of smell has begun to return. It started about 6 months ago. The first things I noticed were my wife's cooking, and my own body odour.

About 7 months ago, a report from CliniCrowd mentioned that a number of PwPs in the trial had noticed their sense of smell returning. However, Jay Alberts has reported a similar experience with a number of PwPs doing high-cadence cycling, and high-cadence cycling is the main exercise that I do.

Mannitol 3 year update
 

A recent post on another mannitol thread has reminded me that it's past time for another mannitol update from me.

Once again, all I can really say is that nothing has really changed, and everything continues to go well (see my 2-year update above).

I was reminded recently of something one of the CliniCrowd staff said about the mannitol trial involving mice. He said that when you scale up the treatment duration from mice to humans, you get a treatment duration for humans of 4 to 6 years. My 4 years will be reached in November 2020.

As I said in my 2 year update, I still find it very easy to add that level tablespoon of mannitol to my morning coffee, so I will continue to do that (and complete the monthly survey) for the foreseeable future.