What Causes Parkinsons Disease
Parkinsons comes under the dementia umbrella. Its adegenerative disease of the nervous system that causes a loss of motor skillsand intentional movement. When someone has Parkinsons, the part of the brainthat controls muscular movements and mood function doesnt receive enough ofthe crucial dopamine chemical. Without enough dopamine, bodily movements,learning abilities and mood levels are severely affected. So-called normalfunctions such as speaking, writing, swallowing, walking and sleeping become difficultto perform. These challenges, combined with a lowering of mood levels is whymany Parkinsons patients suffer with depression.
Natural Remedies And Treatments For Parkinsons Disease That Get Powerful Results
To successfully treat the symptoms of Parkinsons, andeven reverse this disorder, there are 4 things you must do
a) Increase your natural dopamine levels
b) Detox your body of all heavy metals andpollutants
c) Reduce all inflammation in the body,especially the brain
d) Repair the neuro pathways
These 10 natural treatments and remedies do all four. Solets not waste any more time then. Here they are in order of importance
Natural Remedy For Parkinsons #4 Chlorella And Borax:
If you have a neurological disease such as Parkinsons orAlzheimers, the importance of removing heavy metals from the body – especiallyfrom the brain and nervous system – cannot be overstated. Heavy metalsaccumulate in the brain and nervous system at a rapid rate and cause damage tothe neurological pathways and brain inflammation. Fluoride is one ofthe worst, however, mercury, lead, aluminium and cadmium are also extremely dangerous.Chlorella and borax not only remove these heavy metals completely, theycontinue to prevent further toxic build-ups.
Chlorella is a miracle blue-green algae and one of themost powerful detoxifiers and chelators yet discovered. Whenits combined with cilantro, its benefits are enhancedsignificantly. A Russian study found that chlorella, combined with cilantro,was able to remove all heavy metals from the body, including fluoride and mercury,with no adverse or harmful side effects. You can purchase chlorellain powdered form online or from most health food stores. Just make sure you buythe Broken Cell Wall Chlorella as this is the strongest and most bio-available.For dosage recommendations, simply follow the directions on the container.
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Motor Benefit Of Caffeine In Pd Patients And Pd Models
The symptomatic effect of caffeine in PD was first tested in 1970s , but has been revisited by several clinical studies recently. The motor benefit of caffeine were documented in a pilot open-label, 6-week dose-escalation study and a 6-week randomized controlled trial of caffeine involving 61 PD patients . These clinical studies suggest that caffeine improved objective motor deficits in PD with the reduced total Unified PD Rating Scale score and the objective motor component. Furthermore, coffee consumption is associated with the reduced hazard ratio for the development of dyskinesia compared with subjects who consumed < 112 mg/day in the Comparison of the Agonist Pramipexole with Levodopa on Motor Complications of Parkinsons Disease and CALM Cohort extension studies . Based on these positive findings, caffeine was recently investigated for motor and disease-modification involving 121 PD patients PD in a phase 3, 5-years , two-arm, double-blind RCT, with a primary outcome focused on motor symptoms and disease-modification as a secondary outcome1. Unfortunately, with the primary outcome analysis after 6 months demonstrating no significant symptomatic benefit of caffeine , the study was terminated earlier than the planned.
Caffeine From Two To Four Daily Cups Of Coffee May Reduce Parkinson’s Disease Symptoms
Should doctors start prescribing coffee?
In the latest study to tie coffee to health benefits, new research finds a daily caffeine boost may ease symptoms of Parkinson’s disease in sufferers.
Parkinson’s is a degenerative brain disease that causes tremors, difficulty with walking, movement and coordination. The condition most commonly develops in adults over 50, and occurs when nerve cells in the brain that make the muscle-controlling neurotransmitter dopamine are slowly destroyed, leading to loss in muscle function. The cause of the disease remains unknown.
The study, published August 1 in the online issue of Neurology, tracked 61 people with Parkinson’s who were exhibiting symptoms of daytime sleepiness. Participants were assigned to receive either a placebo pill twice per day or a 100 milligram-caffeine pill twice per day for three weeks. After three weeks, those in the caffeine group were given a 200 milligram caffeine pill twice per day, about the caffeine equivalent found in two to four cups of coffee.
Six weeks into the study, people taking the caffeine pills averaged a five-point improvement on a ratings scale of Parkinson’s symptom severity compared to those who took placebos. Researchers called this a modest improvement, but one that might provide benefits to people with the disease.
Oddly enough, caffeine did not appear to help improve the patients’ daytime sleepiness problems.
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A Cup Of Joe May Help Some Parkinsons Disease Symptoms
The American Academy of Neurology, an association of more than 25,000 neurologists and neuroscience professionals, is dedicated to promoting the highest quality patient-centered neurologic care. A neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as Alzheimers disease, stroke, migraine, multiple sclerosis, brain injury, Parkinsons disease and epilepsy.For more information about the American Academy of Neurology, visit http://www.aan.com or find us on , , and .
Eat Plenty Of Protein But Not With Levodopa Medications
If youre taking a levodopa medication, your doctor may tell you to avoid protein when taking your meds. Both animal and plant protein can interfere with the absorption of levodopa medications.
But you should still eat plenty of protein. Just be strategic with the timing. Dont take levodopa medications with meals, Dr. Gostkowski says. Its best to take it on an empty stomach either 30 minutes before your meal or an hour after eating.
If you get nauseous from the medication, eat a small amount of starchy food with it, such as crackers. Make sure whatever you eat with your medicine doesnt have protein. Its a misunderstanding that people with Parkinsons should avoid protein, Dr. Gostkowski says. You definitely need protein in your diet. Just dont eat it when youre taking your levodopa medication.
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Signs And Symptoms Of Parkinsons Disease
Patients of Parkinsons disease may deal with the following signs and symptoms-
Shaking or Tremor: Shaking or tremor usually starts in a particular limb, more often in any finger or one hand. You may even notice a forth and a back rubbing of your forefinger and thumb, known commonly as a pill-rolling type of tremor. parkinsons disease problems major characteristic is tremor in one hand when it remains in rest or in relaxed condition.
Bradykinesia or Slow Movement: With time, Parkinsons disease reduces the physical ability associated with your body movement and thereby, makes even simple tasks very much difficult and much time consuming. You may take relatively short steps while you walk or face difficulty in standing from your chair. Even you may drag the feet while trying to walk and thereby, causing difficulty in your body movements.
Muscular Rigidity: Muscular stiffness may take place in any specific part of the patients body. Stiff muscles may limit the exact motion range and cause pain.
Impaired Balance and Posture: Posture of Parkinsons disease patients may sometimes become stoop or individuals may deal with balance problems because of the disease.
Loss in Automatic Movements: In case of Parkinsons disease, you may deal with reduced ability in performing unconscious movements, such as swinging arms while you walk, smiling and blinking of your eyes.
Changes in Writing: You may face difficulty in writing or the writing becomes small than before.
Parkinson’s Disease And Coffee
This is Bill White with the VOA Special English Science Report.
Scientists say people who drink a lot of coffee may be less likely than others to develop the brain disorder called Parkinson’s disease. The Journal of the American Medical Association recently reported a possible connection between the disease and caffeine. Caffeine is in coffee, tea and many soft drinks.
The medical publication reported on a study of about eight-thousand Japanese-American men in the American state of Hawaii. The study lasted thirty years. G. Webster Ross of the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Honolulu led the research.
The study found that the men who drank the most coffee were the least likely to develop Parkinson’s disease. The report says men who drank about five cups of coffee a day were five times less likely to develop Parkinson’s than men who did not drink coffee. However, the researchers say that they do not know if these results would also be true among women and other ethnic groups.
Millions of people around the world suffer from Parkinson’s Disease. The disease involves the destruction of nerve cells in the brain that produce the chemical dopamine. Dopamine helps control muscle movements. Signs of the disease include uncontrolled shaking, difficulty moving muscles and loss of balance. Mental problems also can result. The effects get worse over time. Patients become unable to care for themselves.
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Caffeine Modulates Neuroinflammation In Pd
The mechanisms underlying anti-neuroinflammation by caffeine may involve the antagonism of the A2AR, the major molecular target . A2ARs affords neuroprotection through the control of microglia reactivity and neuroinflammation. Notably, pharmacological blockade or genetic deletion of A2AR produces similar anti-neuroinflammatory and neuroprotective effects as with caffeine in several experimental models of PD . For example, enhanced reactive astrogliosis and NF-B p65 activation around the injection site in hippocampus in an -Syn transmission mouse model of PD, and these -Syn-triggered neuroinflammatory responses were largely prevented in A2AR KO mice . In the well-established -Syn fibril model of PD, chronic caffeine treatment largely reverted the -Syn-induced microglial activation and astrogliosis in the striatum in mice . Moreover, in A2AR antagonists also control neuroinflammation , of synaptopathy and -amyloid processing in AD models. Thus, caffeine may exert anti-neuroinflammation and neuroprotection effect in PD by targeting the A2ARs.
Foods High In Saturated Fat
The role that foods high in saturated fats play in Parkinsons progression is still under investigation and is often conflicting. We might eventually discover that there are certain types of saturated fats that actually help people with Parkinsons.
Some limited research does show that ketogenic, low-protein diets were beneficial for some with Parkinsons. Other research finds high saturated fat intake worsened risk.
But in general, foods that have been fried or heavily processed alter your metabolism, increase blood pressure, and impact your cholesterol. None of those things are good for your body, especially if youre trying to treat Parkinsons.
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Coffee And Parkinsons: Protection In The Making
All Science News articles summarize a research study and are not an official opinion, endorsement or position of the Parkinsons Foundations.
For years, drinking coffee has been associated with having a reduced risk of developing Parkinson’s disease . In fact, a 1968 study suggested that coffee drinkers were less like to get PD . Since then, multiple epidemiologic studies have confirmed the PD/coffee connection . Researchers have mostly attributed the protective effect to the caffeine component .
Heres what the researchers did: over a six-month period, they treated groups of two different PD model mice with various combinations of caffeine and EHT to study their effects on both brain and behavior. There was also a group of mice that received no treatment. Then they performed several behavioral tests to study their movement, as well as study their brains for signs of alpha-synuclein clumps , neurodegeneration and inflammation. The study found that the untreated mice had significant amounts of clumped -synuclein in their brains, increased inflammation and loss of neurons, as well as significant deficits on three different behavioral tests. In general, the mice treated with EHT or caffeine alone showed either no or minimal improvement in any of these measures. However, the mice treated with the combination of EHT and caffeine together showed significant improvements in all of these measures.
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Caffeine May Modulate Pd Pathology By Regulating Autophagy Activity
Using an -Syn fibril model of PD, we recently have provided the first evidence that caffeine can attenuate abnormal -Syn aggregation and neurotoxicity by re-establishing autophagy activity in animal models of PD . Specifically, chronic caffeine treatment did not affect autophagy processes in the normal mice striatum, but did selectively reverse -Syn-induced defects in macroautophagy and CMA . Thus, caffeine may represent a novel pharmacological therapy for PD by targeting autophagy pathway. This study collaborates with the previous study showing that caffeine-induced autophagy protected against human prion protein peptide -triggered apoptosis in a SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cell line. Therefore, autophagy enhanced by caffeine may be a valid therapeutic strategy for neurodegenerative diseases such as PD and prion .
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Different Coffee Types And Nutrition
Coffee is available in many forms: whole beans, pre-ground, and freeze-dried. To maintain the best condition of your coffee, it should always be stored in a dry and preferably airtight container.
In terms of nutrition, organic black, fresh coffee is best as it contains the highest level of nutrients.
Caffeine May Influence Pd Pathology By Modulating Gut Microbiota
The gut microbiota in the human gastrointestinal tract is estimated to contain 10 times more microbial cells than human cells, and approximately 100200-times more protein coding genes than the human genome . The gut microbiota critically influence various aspects of human biology, including the absorption and metabolism of nutrients, vitamins, medications, and toxic compounds the development and differentiation of the intestinal epithelium and immune system, the maintenance of tissue homeostasis, and the prevention of pathogens invasion . The gut microbiota also plays an important role in gut-brain communication, and the neuroimmune system to maintain brain homeostasis, thus influencing brain function and behavior . In healthy subjects, the intestinal microbiota is generally stable over time, but compositional changes might occur following antibiotic usage or dietary modifications .
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Potential Neuroprotective Effects Of Caffeine In Pd Patients And Pd Models
Furthermore, the neuroprotective effect of caffeine from epidemiological investigation is further supported by mounting evidence from animal studies demonstrating that caffeine confers neuroprotection against dopaminergic neurodegeneration in neurotoxin PD models using mitochondrial toxins and -Syn transmission mouse model through intracerebral injection of -Syn fibers . For example, acute or chronic treatment with caffeine attenuates MPTP-induced dopaminergic neurotoxicity and neurodegeneration . It is interesting to note that in a chronic MPTP infusion model of PD caffeine can still confer protection against dopamine neurodegeneration even when caffeine was administered after the onset of the neurodegenerative process . Furthermore, our recent study demonstrated that caffeine can protect against A53T mutant -Syn induced pathological alterations in intact animals using the -Syn fibril model of PD, an effect associated with the enhanced activity of autophagy .
Combine Exercise With Diet
Dr. Gostkowski says if you want to feel your best, combine a healthy diet with exercise. Research has shown that regular exercise can improve PD symptoms.
Do exercise that raises your heart rate, Dr. Gostkowski says. Aim for about 30 minutes a day, five days a week. Dont worry about specific exercises. Do an activity you enjoy, as long as it gets your heart rate up. Try brisk walking or biking or more advanced exercise for veteran athletes. I recommend seeing an occupational therapist. They can tailor an exercise program to your needs.
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Add Medication For A Winning Combo
Diet and exercise are important for managing PD, but dont forget about medications. Take them regularly and exactly as your doctor prescribes.
If you tend to forget your medication, set an alarm to remind you. You can also use a pillbox thats labeled with days and times of day. Take your meds on a set schedule, dont skip doses and dont double dose, says Dr. Gostkowski. When youre diligent about taking your medications and following a healthy lifestyle, youll feel your best.
Caffeine As A Biomarker For Parkinson’s Disease
Researchers at Juntendo University report in Neurology the potential use of blood levels of caffeine and its byproducts as biomarkers for Parkinson’s disease. The finding is promising for the development of a method enabling early identification of the disease.
Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system, affecting the latter’s motor systemthe part controlling bodily motion. Its symptoms include shaking, rigidity and difficulty with walking. There is evidence that daily caffeine consumption reduces the risk of developing Parkinson’s. Now, a team of researchers led by Nobutaka Hattori from Juntendo University School of Medicine have studied how traces of caffeine in the blood, after drinking coffee, can be indicative of Parkinson’s disease. The researchers found that caffeine levels are significantly lower in patients with the disease caffeine concentrations could therefore be used as an indicator of Parkinson’s, particularly in its early stages.
The researchers studied a group of 139 people, both men and women, with and without Parkinson’s disease. Each person drank between 0 and 5 cups of coffee per day . Then, they checked the participants’ blood serum for traces of caffeine and its 11 so-called downstream metabolitessmall molecules produced during caffeine-induced metabolic processes in the human body.
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Is Coffee Good Or Bad For Your Health
Although early studies of coffee suggested that it could lead to health problems, recent research provides strong evidence that drinking coffee actually has a variety of health benefits.
The overall evidence has been pretty convincing that coffee has been more healthful than harmful in terms of health outcomes, said Frank Hu, chair of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in an April 5, 2021, article in Discover. For most people, moderate coffee consumption can be incorporated into a healthy diet.
Hu said that moderate coffee intakeabout 25 cups a dayis linked to a lower likelihood of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, liver and endometrial cancers, Parkinsons disease, and depression. Its even possible that people who drink coffee can reduce their risk of early death.
Early research linked coffee to diseases ranging from heart disease and asthma. But Hu noted that many participants in those studies also smoked, which may have led researchers to think that coffee was responsible for the adverse effects that are now linked with cigarettes. He added that anything people consume a lot of tends to come under scrutiny. In the past, I think a lot of people thought, Oh, coffees so delicious, there must be something bad about coffee, he said. So I think the good news is that most people, coffee actually confers some health benefits.