While it may not cure peoples' Parkinson's disease, a treadmill may improve their gait.

Every once in a while, I like to mix up my aerobic activity by walking or jogging on the good ol’ treadmill.  It’s not the most exciting piece of workout equipment, but it is alleviating, as a treadmill gives my knees the relief they need after weeks of pounding the pavement (i.e. I prefer to run outdoors, but the ground is not exactly forgiving on the joints).

But besides runners, there’s another group of people that may come to treasure the treadmill:  People with Parkinson’s.

According to a study recently published in the Cochrane Library, training performed on a treadmill can work wonders in improving the gait of people with Parkinson’s.  A person’s “gait” is just a fancy way of describing how a person walks or the ease with which a person walks.  And as anyone who has Parkinson’s knows, walking is just one of the many functional casualties that affects them.

Researchers discovered the treatment a treadmill can provide after observing people with Parkinson’s, approximately 203 of them.  When they compared those who went through the training versus those who did not train, virtually every aspect of walking improved compared to those that did not train.  In measurements of the participants’ stride length, steps per minute, walking speed and distance, movement improved in everyone that trained.  There were no such improvements in those that did not train.

As is the norm with these kinds of studies, the study’s researchers played down the findings.  They said their analysis comes from a very small group of participants.  There’s also some confusion as to how long the improvements last and what training techniques are best.

Parkinson’s disease is a neurological disorder that affects a person’s movement by increasing rigidity, diminishing one’s sense of balance, and causing tremor-like motions.  Muhammad Ali and Michael J. Fox are perhaps the most well known public figures with Parkinson’s disease, but they are two of the 1.2 million living with the condition in the U.S. alone (there are about 50,000 newly diagnosed cases of Parkinson’s each year).  Parkinson’s disease afflicts more men than women.

While there is no known cure for Parkinson’s (don’t trust any natural health web site that claims to “cure” Parkinson’s; they’re selling you a bill of goods) there are things you can do to help ease the symptoms.  Besides treadmill training, creatine can help.  Creatine helps stabilize the muscles by increasing muscle stamina and endurance.  Co-enzyme Q10 may be beneficial as well.  Co-enzyme Q10 does a lot for improving brain function, and since Parkinson’s starts in the brain, it may help slow the progression of the disease.

In a similar vein, glutathione may be beneficial.  Parkinson’s is essentially an indication that a number of important brain cells have been lost; glutathione may help restore what’s been lost.

Sources:
parkinsons-disease.emedtv.com
sciencedaily.com
Balch, Phyllis A.  “Prescription for Nutritional Healing.”  4^th Edition.  2006.  Avery:  New York

Farmers that work with pesticides significantly raise their risk for acquiring Parkinson’s disease.

Every year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics compiles a list of the world’s most dangerous jobs based on how many people died while at the job site.  In 2008, for example, of the 5,000+ reported on-the-job deaths, fishermen ranked number one.

Other “deadly” jobs in 2008 were in the logging industry, the aircraft industry, and the transportation industry among taxi drivers, and refuse workers.

Another profession where hundreds of lives were lost—317, to be specific—was in farming.  Most of these deaths were due to freak accidents where heavy machinery was involved, making it the fifth deadliest jobs in America.

One thing the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t compile a list of is jobs that increase the risk of obtaining a disease.  If they did, farming would be chief among them.

According to a new study in the journal Archives of Neurology, farmers that work with pesticides dramatically increase their risk for Parkinson’s disease.  What’s more, among three specific pesticides, that risk is three times higher than among other pesticides!

The study was really more of a survey, as the researchers involved asked 519 people with Parkinson’s about their occupational history and how often they were around pesticides.  They also interviewed 511 other people who served as controls.  These people did not have Parkinson’s but lived in the same area as those with Parkinson’s.

Among those with Parkinson’s, about 10 percent of them had a job that had them around pesticides frequently, like farming.  This is in stark comparison to the healthy controls, where about 5 percent of them reported being around pesticides through work.

That pesticides increase the risk of Parkinson’s is nothing new, though, as studies going back to the 19^th century have found links between pesticide use and Parkinson’s.  What hasn’t been analyzed is what specific pesticides increase that risk.

To answer that question, researchers analyzed eight highly toxic pesticides.  According to their analysis, all eight of them put someone at double the risk for obtaining Parksinson’s compared to those who are never around them, but three pesticides put someone at triple the risk!

The trifecta of trouble are 2,4 dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, paraquat, and permethrin.  The researchers report that all three affect the levels at which the brain can transmit dopamine, the neurotransmitter that controls movement.

Parkinson’s disease is a neurological disorder.  It manifests itself through a number of symptoms, like rigidity, improper balance, slowness of movement, tremor-like motions (shaking uncontrollably) and muffled speech.  While the cause for this disease remains unknown, it results from the brain being unable to transmit neurotransmitters that control movement.

While Parkinson’s is diagnosed overwhelmingly among men and women over the age of 65, 15 percent of those with Parkinson’s are under the age 50 (Michael J. Fox is perhaps the most well-known example).  Approximately one million people in the United States have Parkinson’s, and an estimated 60,000 people are newly diagnosed with it every year.

Sources:
sciencedaily.com
msnbc.msn.com
telegraph.co.uk
parkinson.org