Dads PD and my risk
 

My dad has PD so I assume there is a chance I could get it(I'm 38yo). I also just read the PD stats and redheads are at a high risk and thats me. Is there anything I can start doing/taking to decrease my chances of getting PD? Thanks

First of all, do lots of sports. Jogging and muscle training. This releases BDNF which keeps your brain young and healthy.

There are things you can eat that decreases the odds of getting PD like several teas (green tea, black tea), flavanoids, mediteranean diet, avoiding sugars, ...

This is what is scientifically proven, as far as I know.

Hi Horsegoer.

The chances are higher (not high) only for people with certain genetic markers and even so not everyone in familes with a marker will get PD - environmental factors are generally assumed to be part of the picture as well. That said red hair does increase the risk slightly. I'm sure others on here can elaborate. The great majority of people with Parkinsons are "idiopathic", i.e. of no known cause although theories abound as to environmental and other triggers.

This is an interesting question.

I'm not qualified to answer the specific question of the thread's starter, since the answer must, at least in part, be contingent on the general health of both the father and the child. Instead, let's look at the general case.

A paper by Payami et. al. gives the relative risk factors for parents of early onset PwP as 7.76 and for parents of late onset people as 2.95.

Note they give data for the parent given the child having PD, whereas we are really interested in the opposite, the child given the parent having PD. We can use Bayes Theorem to move from one to the other. If we assume that prevalence rates are not changing, we get the same values either way: that is, a child with a PwP parent has on average between 3 and 8 times the risk of having Parkinson's than that of someone who doesn't. (Note this paper is 10 years old, advances in genetics most likely mean that estimates can be more precise.)

However, the news is not as bad as this may, at first sight, suggest. PD is not a common disease, so these factors only take the probability of getting PD from the very unlikely to the unlikely, rather than the likely. A graph in the same paper gives the cumulative probability of escaping PD as 98% (no PD child), 94% (late onset child) and 86% (early onset child). And, those figures are for people who survive into their 80s; many people will die earlier than this, often before being diagnosed.

Reference

"Familial Aggregation of Parkinson DiseaseA Comparative Study of Early-Onset and Late-Onset Disease"
Haydeh Payami, PhD; Sepideh Zareparsi, PhD; Dora James, BS; John Nutt, MD
Archives of Neurology, May 2002, vol 59, no. 5
http://archneur.jamanetwork.com/arti...ticleid=782004

John

My father had dementia and looking back what now seems to me like Parkinson's but not diagnosed. I have reddish hair and have PD. But if I were you I would not fret. Do all the things to be healthy ANYWAY. I think of the times I almost rear ended or been rear ended which could have caused serious harm, or the bout with pneumonia that made me very ill and sent me to the hospital for a week. There are so many things that can happen in life, best to move on and live it. Hope this doesnt sound preachy. Just my 2 cents

No one else in my dad's family had/has PD, at least in the parent /brother/sister generations.
I also suggest eating and living as healthy as you can.

Be aware if any symptoms arise in the future, but don't stress yourself worrying over something that probably won't happen.

Thanks very much.

Get the book by Dr. Laurie K Mishley..Natural Therapies for Parkinson's Disease
It is the best book I have read, I have never met her, but it seems we have done practically the same research! Before reading the book, I was doing her book!
She suggests particular FOODS,vitamins, and COQ 10, turmeric, etc that I take....she doesn't mention fermented papaya....wish I could get the word on that to her. Perhaps someday we'll meet?? Life is amazing. She also mentions that if PD is in your family...why not change your diet now? (avoid dairy, drink green tea...etc..) Americans have unusually poor diets...full of quick processed foods, which are normally heated in a microwave oven.... You are what you eat is an old saying, but true.

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AB,
The only thing I worry about with green tea is doesn't mostly all of it come from China and, therefore, is contaminated with heavy metals, etc. do to their toxic environment?

you can buy certified organic green tea from sri lanka, india, japan plus green tea extracts.