Is a lack of oxygen the real cause of Parkinson's?
 

The past 5 years since I was diagnosed with PD, I've read thousands of articles and studies postulating the possible causes of PD. Lately though I wonder if PD may be caused by a lack of oxygen to neurons in the brain. Sure a number of things such as toxins, physical damage (e.g. boxing, car accident etc.) may have occurred, I believe they have all somehow impaired the flow of oxygen. Lately, I've discovered that clumps of excess alpha synuclein apparently impairs/affects the activity of red blood cells which bring oxygen into the brain. Also, dozens of studies clearly show that PWP who exercise vigorously and regularly (which improves oxygen intake) seem to do much better. I could be wrong, but I believe that improving oxygen flow is crucial to stopping/reversing PD.

http://www.naturalnews.com/038930_sl...lzheimers.html

1. i've read that if we lived longer we'd all get pd since we lose a certain number of dopamine producing cells every year naturally as we age.
2. assuming that we all have a surplus of dopamine producing cells and we have to lose at least 80% of them before pd symptoms occur - i've read this % might be lower than 80%, and since there is no definitive biomarker tests to detect the start of pd before it can be visually detected, there's no way to tell when your abnormally large loss of neurons started. could have been in the womb - you could have been born with fewer dopamine producing neurons!! could have been a concussions from sports or an accident, exposures to a toxin, a fever, a systemic prescription drug, something that happened years ago but your pd didn't manifest itself until normal loss of neurons finally resulted in your displaying pd.
3. lots of research is being done looking for biomarkers in young people not showing pd to try to get closer to the time neurons started to be lost and closer to the cause.
4. people who exercise might have a lower incidence of pd and alzheimers but the incidence is pretty low to begin with. a lot of obese, out of shape people, people with coronary disease, arteriosclerosis, strokes, don't get pd. if they did get pd more often than be accounted for by chance, it would have been detected when analyzing data in countries like sweden which have extensive national medical records.
5. smokers have a lower incidence of pd, i assume they have less O2 flow to the brain at times since nicotine is a vasoconstricter.
6. people with pd who travel to high altitudes don't report their pd gets worse, there are anecdotal reports that they feel better.
7. i agree 100% exercise is good for you mentally and physically, a ton of research on that.
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/ar.../t-140074.html

Parkinsons and REM Sleep Disorder
 

I suffer from REM Sleep disorder and sleep apnea. There have been some research studies that show a direct link between REM sleep disorder (body not switching off during sleep, acting out dreams) in particular but with a suggestion of sleep apnea and reduction of oxygen being linked to neurological disorders.

This all needs further investigation but I would not write your theory off just yet

Oxygen consumption and Thiamine
 

It would be interesting to find out if B1 injections seem to help some PD patients because they have, for whatever reason, impaired oxygen consumption. And if there is an impaired oxygen consumption is it because their body, again for whatever reason, is not able to used B1 from food or supplements? Was there ever a study done to find out if PD patients do have impaired oxygen consumption?

Intravenous Thiamine Is Associated with Increased Oxygen Consumption

http://www.atsjournals.org/doi/abs/1...C#.VWE4kZTF8rM

Bogusia, I came across a couple of studies which suggest that exercise can lead to improved oxygen consumption in people with PD.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23128427

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24991037

I can post studies, if really needed, but I think it's a well known fact that exercise can lead to improved oxygen consumption in everyone, so why would it be surprising that it does so with PWP? I'm not sure how these studies would at all relate to any hypotheses regarding B1 consumption or oxygen deprivation being a cause of PD. In fact, neither study showed a relationship between increased oxygen consumption and improvement with PD symptoms.

In the Schulman et al study, only the lower intensity exercise had impact on gait speed, while it had no impact on oxygen consumption. High impact exercise increased oxygen consumption but did not effect walking gait speed.

In the Uc Ey et al study, exercise increased all measured components of PD motor scores. However, increased maximum oxygen consumption correlated only with improvements on the flanker task and quality of life score with no relationship with the PD motor scores.

From my point of view, I have no doubt that exercise of all types are beneficial to PWP, although there are probably qualitative differences between the types of exercise. With regard to the other theories relating to the cause of PD, who knows. So many relationships, correlations, have been found over the past years. Some are supportive, many are not. I think soccertese's comment about smokers is very relevant. How do you incorporate that known, negative, relationship into the theories? Is there a beneficial aspect of nicotine that is somehow overcoming the lowering of oxygen consumption caused by smoking?

Smoking and CBF
 

As per this study, smoking increases cerebral blood flow. This could be body protective mechanism to overcome the lowering of oxygen consumption.

http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/8237131

Interesting, thanks

Re:oxygen and PD
 

check out Dr. Konstantin Buteyko, an early (worked in 50's.60'a)Russian physiologist/respirologist. He developed a breathing program designed to increase the oxygen saturation of cells. His followers claim they can help Parkinson's, but only in the early stages. His method has been written about in the NYT because, I think it was Duke U. that did a study that validated his program for pediatric asthmatics.
Worth a look. I have successfully 'breathed away' a couple of panic attacks, if I catch them early enough.
worth a look....SB