"Breakthrough" and "Sea change" in understanding PD
 

I am using quotations because this might just be a recycle of something that has been previously published, but it just may be news...

Apparently Harvard researchers have identified a physiological cause to PD. It looks like our mitochondria, which power our brain cells, are somehow turned off. Researchers have located the master switch to turn them back on in the form of PGC-1Alpha. The researchers describe it as like a circuit breaker that restores power to all cells and they have lab proof that afflicted dopamine cells ward off degeneration when mitochondria are active.

Further, this master switch gene PGC-1Alpha already has been harnessed into a drug therapy for diabetes, and so the thought is that it may work in PD and other illnesses.

A few caveats:

Apparently, this will halt disease, not sure if just in new patients and more advanced. It does appear to reverse dopamine loss very early on in the disease process. So not clear this will benefit anyone at mid stage.

Researchers do not know if the master switch itself PGC-1Alpha is itself shut down or damaged or if it is just that everything controlled by it is affected.
That is a huge difference if they want to use it therapeutically.

Also, apparently this "master switch" is impacted by 10 known genes:

" a root cause of Parkinson's disease may lie in 10 gene sets related to energy production that spur neurons in the brain to "divorce" their mitochondria and related energy-producing pathways."

Does this mean that only those with one of the 10 gene sets have this as a root cause of PD and only they might benefit from this treatment. I don't like what this says about a potential "cure"- it implies that since we are all so different in our pathologies, that we need individualized cures.

Still this is promising for us all in that faulty mitochondria seem to play a pivotal role and this may spur on new research that is driven by a purpose to see that it results in clinical treatments that much sooner. It also goes to prove once again, that researchers need to start looking more to genetics for real results that show promise.

Here are a few links:

Healthzone.ca

Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1006151557.htm

Laura

thank you bluedahlia and laura
 

Thank you for posting and sharing. I am happy that both of you beside myself have created 3 threads almost simultaneously about this same promising research.
the 3 articles complement each other.
cheers
Imad

Oops
 

Imad,

Oops, Bluedahlia and I must have been working on it at the same time...that and with a toddler trying to type along with me...I missed your thread.

Maybe the moderators can delete our later ones. I should have known that you would be on top of this! My friend from Windsor alerted me rather late in the day.

Laura

Great minds think alike? hehe