The Cold, Hard Facts of PD - Is It Partly Caused by the Cold?
 

Think for a minute about what we know about geo-distribution of PD. One of the highest rates in the upper mid-West. The further north of the equator the more common PD becomes. Cold Scandinavia has lots. Warm India has hots. Hawaii, too.

Being cold is such a strong stressor that it is used by science as a standard tool. When we get cold, our adrenals start pumping out the stress cocktail. Some of us handle it better than others. We all know someone who just never gets warm.That is determined by the function of other parts of the endocrine system (i.e. thyroid, etc).

Could it be that simple?

Isn't it quaint what they knew 30 years ago?
 

1. Ann Neurol. 1985 Nov;18(5):544-51.

Stress-induced neurological impairments in an animal model of parkinsonism.

Snyder AM, Stricker EM, Zigmond MJ.

Adult rats were given the neurotoxin 6-hydroxydopamine (6-HDA) by means of
cerebrospinal fluid to produce large dopamine-depleting brain lesions. Although
the animals behaved normally in their home cages, they became akinetic after such
treatments as glucoprivation, tail shock, and exposure to severe cold. The
neurological impairments were related both to the extent of dopamine depletion
and to the intensity of the stress. Drugs known to enhance dopaminergic function
were found to reverse the stress-induced neurological deficits, while
dopaminergic antagonists potentiated the debilitating effects of stress. After
focal lesions were produced by injecting 6-hydroxydopamine directly into specific
brain regions, stress-induced akinesia was found to correlate best with dopamine
depletion in the corpus striatum, especially the lateral portion of that
structure. These and other findings suggest that the acute emergence of
parkinsonian symptoms during stress may reflect extensive damage to the
dopaminergic nigrostriatal pathway that had been concealed in a preclinical
phase, owing to compensatory neurochemical changes in the dopaminergic neurons
that yet remain intact.


PMID: 3935041 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

I used to be able to take the cold. Minus 40C was okay by me.
Now the slightest cold wind and I start shaking like a leaf on a newborn tree

And we had frost in June. I have an ability to shiver that i believe to be guiness book of records material.
the ultimate canadian story was the Cremation of Sam McGee
i figure we have 10 times the pd rate in mexico. I don;t know why. cold diet cold weather? Is it really true hot countries have less?
Stress of living cold? but our hearts are not cold

this geo location of pd is very strange, this was never known? No one fed the postal codes into a google map generator? But they had no list of where the disease was happening? and nobody bothered to look at it? No research to see who has pd, geographically and other ways? and now one county has 12 times more pd than another one?
there must be a mistake - maybe the data was wrong. cant be true that with $250MK spent on pd research ever year, that nobody ever asked where these PWP people come from
where they live what they do the actual people not just the thing about the chemicals in the brain that requiire more chemicals
turns out who they are matters and where they were brought up
some get more some less
one size does not fit all no matter what it sayss on the label

Certainly cold weather makes my Parkinson's worse.

But I don't think a cold climate is in itself a major determinant in the prevalence of PD.

See the prevalence map in
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2865395/

"Geographic and Ethnic Variation in Parkinson Disease: A Population-Based Study of US Medicare Beneficiaries"
Allison Wright Willisa, Bradley A. Evanoffb, Min Lianb, Susan R. Criswella, Brad A. Racette
Neuroepidemiology 2010;34:143-151 (DOI: 10.1159/000275491)

I reckon the correlation is with wind direction and pollution. See the recent thread on American prevelance.

John

air pollution is a smoking gun
 

I will play devil's advocate and say that it is just the opposite for me. I have never gotten along with humidity, and in MI we have been having 70-90 % humidity plus temps in the 80's - I am rendered near useless; my meds are less effective and I have no energy beyond just trying to move about like a normal person.

In support of air pollution:

-long established that breathing in fine particulate matter can trigger immune response.
-long established that PM linked to prevalence of heart disease and pulmonary disorders like asthma.

-new research targets neurological effects with many studies in highly polluted areas showing higher numbers of reported PD

-smoking gun (2008) Exposure to air pollution causes neuroinflammation, an altered brain innate immune response, and accumulation of Abeta42 and alpha-synuclein starting in childhood. Exposure to air pollution should be considered a risk factor for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, and carriers of the APOE 4 allele could have a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease if they reside in a polluted environment.

I honestly do not know why no one is making a fuss over this. Perhaps because the data comes from Mexico? Here is the full text of the article;
it was published in Toxologic Pathology and it is not mere speculation they have the brain imagery in children as young as eleven but mostly in teens; also biochemical measures. In other words they offer living proof.

I started a thread last summer which generated little interest though I would say that this is most likely the major environmental insult for most of us. Interesting isn't it that media and the press continue to promote pesticides as the culprit. Obviously given our love affair with highways, suburban sprawl, and addiction to fossil fuels, no one is too eager to report or discuss air quality. What sickens me is that we are doing this to our children.

This also begs the question does remaining in a highly polluted area affect our progression once we have full blown PD? In other words, if you moved to a much less polluted environment and was properly diagnosed vert early on how would your PD in rural Montana stack up against someone in Minnesota for example when you are compared ten years down the road?

In fact if they bothered to collect any data from us at all; they could probably learn a lot by comparing what rural PD looks like against urban PD here and now. Just some rambling far out ideas that will never happen...

-Laura

Laura asks an excellent question:
"This also begs the question does remaining in a highly polluted area affect our progression once we have full blown PD? "

In the case of PD (low recovery rates, at best, and almost a steady state)
average life expectancy from diagnosis is approximately prevalence divided by incidence.

It's not easy to work with, but we have the data in the two maps. It's a pity that we don't have the raw data.

John

Rick....Perhaps 23andME and Google wil partner in a study utilizing the data we "SPIT" into their system. Their research team questions seem to indicate they are looking beyond mutant genes for causes.

I too wondered about air pollution, not just from pesticides etc but maybe from cars. Why do people never factor that into the equation, it surely has to be the biggest constant....... I have lived in house on roads with a high traffic density all my life, even when living in the country in a v small village.... PErhaps superimposing those maps on maps of highways with high volume traffic might yield something.......

What about Vitamin D?
 

Another hypothesis could be that in colder climates people get less Vitamin D synthesized due to less sun exposure. There have been some links made between PD and low Vitamin D levels, but obviously that doesn't mean causality.

Vitamin D has also been shown to increase tyrosine hydroxylase, which is a rate limiting step in conversion of tyrosine to l-dopa.

Vitamin D increases expression of the tyrosine hydroxylase gene in adrenal medullary cells

I plan to have my mom tested for her 25-OH Vitamin D levels and increase her supplementation of Vitamin D accordingly. There is a lot of good literature out there arguing that the RDA recommendations on Vitamin D are still outdated and daily intake should be significantly higher. Basically the RDA level prevents us from getting rickets but it is not the ideal intake level for optimal body function.

Nickvalo,
make sure that her folate, vit b 12, and homocysteine levels are checked too
these imbalances can cascade with pd. folate supplementation can mask b12 deficiency, which can give symtoms that can overlap with pd symptoms....