Monday 5 December 2016

Parkinsons from the Gut?

Let me preface this post with, I AM NOT A DOCTOR, but I would love to hear from one about my thoughts...

I've just got through reading this article, it's very brief, on the BBC... Which talks about the study of genetically identical mice being tested for Parkinsons, and that gut microbes played a huge part in making one set begin with the disease, indeed being one of the root causes above and beyond the genetic pre-disposition to developing the disease.

This is a huge break through, however, the article talks about this being "discovered for the first time a biological link between the gut microbiome and Parkinson's disease".  Which may very well be true, but it goes onto talk about the microbes in question were "break[ing] down fibre into short-chain fatty acids"...

So, this is not the first time such a link has been biologically established, we've already seen this in studies of adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), many people know this story from the Hollywood movie "Lorenzo's Oil", the story of the struggle of Augusto and Michaela Odone to find a cure, or therapy for ALD for their son Lorenzo.

Augusto undertook a mammoth research task himself to prove that using said "oil" worked to block the break down of Myelin (around nerve cells) in the body.

Surely therefore that this new research is related, the biology of the body is holistic after all, no system within is truly unconnected from the rest.  So, is there not a cross over, or a commonality between the research of the Myelin Project and their proven research that restricting the intake of long-chain fatty acids (perhaps so as bacteria have nothing to work on), flooding the system with non-harmful short-chain fatty acids, and the fact that the bacterial directly now proven to lead to the onset of Parkinsons are creating short-chain fatty acids as well?!?!

One could leap to a conclusion, or a link, and I hope I'm not giving the impression of that, but I find it so curious that there's no mentioned cross over here, or no seemingly holistic look at the action of bacteria or other digestive processes breaking (very-long chain fatty acids) down and that affecting changes in the brain & nervous system.  There might be such research that I'm simply not privy to...

As I said, get in touch if you know... I am literally all ears!


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