High levels of urate could slow Parkinson's

Updated 3d 6h ago | Comments

By Kathleen Fackelmann, USA TODAY

High levels of a natural substance in the blood called urate might slow the progression of Parkinson's, a study out today suggests.

The results raise the hope that urate, or a nutritional supplement called inosine that is converted to urate in the body, might slow the disabling symptoms of Parkinson's, a brain disease that affects more than 1 million people in the USA. Right now, drugs for Parkinson's treat the symptoms but do nothing to slow the progression of the devastating disease, says one study author, Alberto Ascherio of the Harvard School of Public Health.

Previous research had noted that healthy people with high blood levels of urate had a reduced risk of developing Parkinson's later in life. To expand on that research, Ascherio, Michael Schwarzschild of the Massachusetts General Hospital and their colleagues studied 800 people with mild Parkinson's. They looked at blood levels of urate naturally present in the blood and the rate of disease progression over a two-year period.

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