As someone not particularly well read in the medicine world, I knew very little about Parkinson’s disease before, and really had only been exposed to the disease through Michael J Fox, and knowing he had it. By reading about it, I was surprised to find out that Parkinson’s disease is simply diagnosed by eliminating that it is not any other neurological diseases, and while it has certain characteristics like tremors, these can also be linked to other problems or diseases. Parkinson’s disease is interesting in that it affects both motor and non-motor symptoms. Parkinson’s is also largely linked to age and is considered almost a different disease when it is found in younger patients, as a lot of the characteristics of Parkinson’s are age related. Within Parkinson’s disease, neurodegenerations occurs, by mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, a poor proteins that become aggregated, all three leading to cell death in some way, thus leading to neurodegeneration. Within the pathology of Parkinson’s, there is involvement of Lewy bodies and in turn α-synuclein, as Lewy bodies are protein aggregates that are not normally in nerve cells, and α-synuclein is the main component of Lewy bodies. The motor symptoms that are present are linked to the death of dopaminergic neurons, thus there is not proper dopamine in the brain, which leads to loss of voluntary movements. Thus, many of the treatments for Parkinson’s pertain to the dopamine within the brain. What is interesting about these treatments is that they don’t really solve any problems, just temporarily allow controlled movement and disallow involuntary movements. The most common of these treatments is L-DOPA, the precursor to dopamine. L-DOPA is able to cross the blood brain barrier (whereas dopamine is not) and then be synthesized into dopamine once across. However, only 1-5% of the L-DOPA in the body actually makes it across the blood brain barrier, thus sometimes L-DOPA is also taken with enzyme inhibitors, as those can assist in causing the L-DOPA to cross the blood brain barrier or prevent dopamine from getting metabolized (thus the dopamine levels in the brain would be temporarily increased).
Parkinson’s disease is most known in the news in that most people know that Michael J. Fox has it, and I wonder if Michael J. Fox going out and being a spokesperson for the disease helps or hurts research funds. On one hand, I would assume more have heard about it than would, but on the other hand, we see someone with this disease seemingly functioning fairly well, which can lead to thoughts of the disease not being as life changing as ALS or cancer. I think that by having a celebrity spokesperson, there is chance that when people consider donating funds to a research organization that some may not think as Parkinson’s as a disease needing the additional research as much. As I really did not know much about this disease before, I really thought that Parkinson’s wasn’t as much of a terrible or life changing disease, because although I was aware it was around and was a problem, it never really clicked with me why I should care about the disease, I mean Michael J Fox seemed to be acting normal in public appearances, so how much affect could this disease have? What I didn’t understand was the types of treatment that one with this needs to get to be at that seemingly normal level, and the only non-surgical treatments available only subdued symptoms for a bit, not really working against the disease. It really surprised me to realize, that I had been judging a disease solely based on what I saw from one person, and mostly saw that person dealing well with Parkinson’s. Thus, while Michael J Fox is a good spokesperson, I wonder if sometimes this disease gets sidelined in people’s minds in comparison to some of the more deathly neurodegenerative diseases.
Parkinson's Disease: My Old Narrow Mindedness of it Affect
