If you look at Parkinson’s disease from an unemotional perspective, it is one of the many reasons the world is becoming more and more overpopulated. Simply put, people are having more babies and modern medicine is allowing people to live much longer than they have in the past. Currently a baby is born every 8 seconds, one person dies every 11 seconds, and the world has a net gain of one person every 16 seconds(http://www.census.gov/popclock/).
Natural selection, in terms of evolution, means survival of the fittest. For example in a species of fish, imagine there is a gene that encodes for how fast that fish can swim. The species’ main predator is the shark. The fish with the gene type encoding for the fastest swimming ability will survive and reproduce offspring. The fish that had the gene types encoding for slower swimming ability will likely get eaten and not be able to reproduce and pass on their genes. Over time, the fish species as a whole will be able to swim faster because of natural selection.
Modern medicine is essentially working against natural selection. Humans with diseases that would normally die off in other species, are kept alive and able to reproduce and pass their impaired genes onto their offspring. Modern medicine is also keeping people alive longer than they are meant to be, and we are seeing many side-effects of this currently with overpopulation and increases in prevalence of diseases associated with age, such as Parkinson’s disease. For example, the life expectancy in 1950 was 48 years, it is currently about 68 years of age. That fact that people are living much longer causes more humans to inhabit the earth, which means they are using more resources, and causing many environmental and social problems.
Overpopulation is not just caused by longer life expectancy, but it definitely is a main contributor to the situation. There are 7 billion people on the planet right now. Over 1 billion do not have enough food or drinking water. Due to global warming disrupting our ecosystems, billions of more people are threatened with dislocation. To make matters worse, if the population continues it’s growth at the same rate, we will add a billion people to the planet in 12 years(http://www.howmany.org/big_picture.php). Along with decreasing birth rates, another potential solution to this problem could be to stop increasing life expectancy by treating diseases caused by mostly old age.
Old age causes diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s by releasing free radical and reactive oxide species, which basically happens throughout your life and at an even higher rate with old age. It if very difficult, if not impossible to cure Parkinson’s. Because one of its main causes is the release of free radicals which happens throughout a person’s lifetime. Specifically Parkinson’s is also caused in part by the release of MPTP (neurotoxin precursor) into the brain. When MPTP crosses the blood brain barrier, it is metabolized into toxic MPP+. This molecule interferes with the electron transport chain. This action leads to cell death and buildup of free radicals. The cell death occurs specifically in dopaminergic neurons, and when these neurons die it causes a loss of cortical control of complex functions. This loss of control is the common physical effect of Parkinson’s(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPTP).
In closing, the world and its researchers should spend more time and effort on solving global issues caused by overpopulation instead of contributing to the problem by attempting to fight the process of aging.
An Unemotional Approach to Parkinson's
