Future Parkinsonism can not be found in the head…
Parkinson 's was spotted before the appearance
Parkinson's disease will be predicted by colonoscopyDmitry Malianov, "Newspaper.
Physiologists from Rush University Medical Center (Chicago, USA) claim that in the near future, using the analysis of tissue samples obtained during colonoscopy, doctors will determine in advance who may develop Parkinson's disease – a chronic and so far incurable disease of the nervous system caused by the progressive destruction and death of neurons of the black matter of the midbrain and other departments of the Central nervous System.
Parkinson's disease is the most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer's disease. It develops on average in 100 people out of 100 thousand (epidemiological statistics range from 40-150 patients per 100 thousand population), while the number of patients increases among the older age group.
Alpha-synuclein, a protein that accumulates in the brain tissues of patients suffering from Parkinson's disease, is currently considered the main molecular marker of this disease. The role of alpha-synuclein in the development of the disease is not completely clear, but, as autopsy shows, it is he who is the main component of Levi's bodies specific to Parkinson's disease – pathogenic protein formations inside neurons.
As it soon became clear, it is also possible to diagnose Parkinson's disease in healthy patients with alpha-synuclein, moreover, in a much simpler and safer way than a brain biopsy.
As a research group from Rush University showed some time ago, alpha-synuclein is present in nerve cells taken from the intestinal walls in patients at the initial stage of Parkinson's disease, while this protein was absent in cells taken from healthy people from the control group.
Now the same group has demonstrated that alpha-synuclein begins to accumulate in the nerve cells of the intestinal wall several years before a person has the first symptoms of Parkinson's disease. In other words, this protein is its biological premarker, and it can be used to determine whether a person will get sick with this disease or not.
The group, led by Dr. Kathleen Shannon, announced its discovery in an article published in Movement Disorders (Shannon et al., Is alpha-synuclein in the colon a biomarker for premotor Parkinson's Disease? Evidence from 3 cases).
The study examined tissue samples of three people taken during colonoscopy 2-5 years before they began to show the first signs of Parkinson's disease, and alpha-synuclein was detected in all three samples taken from the lower intestinal wall of still healthy people.
"Recent studies confirm the suspicion that Parkinson's disease begins with the intestinal wall and reaches the brain, spreading through nerve cells, and some intestinal diseases, accompanied, in particular, by chronic constipation, can anticipate the development of Parkinson's disease for more than ten years. Our study showed that in the future, with the help of a biopsy of the intestinal wall, it will be possible to determine who will get sick with this disease," says Shannon.
It is possible that sooner or later an intestinal biopsy for the purpose of early prediction of Parkinson's disease will be combined with a colonoscopy – a procedure that it is desirable to undergo annually from the age of 50 and every 3-5 years at a younger age in order to predict rectal cancer early. Now an alternative colonoscopy, rectoromanoscopy, or sigmoidoscopy, is becoming more widespread – a more gentle procedure that does not require pre-cleaning of the intestine and takes only 10 minutes.
Parkinson's disease is still incurable, but early prognostication, while its first symptoms have not only not developed, but have not even appeared yet, will help to take steps to slow down, and in the future, with the development of new drugs, and completely prevent it. Studies show that many patients now have 60 to 80 percent of the neurons that produce dopamine, a neurotransmitter that plays an important role in the development of the disease, by the time the earliest symptoms of Parkinson's disease appear.
"Billions of dollars are spent on the search for effective drugs that slow down and stop the development of Parkinson's disease, and the search for reliable markers that predict its development before the onset of symptoms is especially relevant now. We are confident that alpha-synuclein can play the role of such a marker," Shannon summarizes.
The next step will be to test the results of the study on a larger number of patients and control groups, the authors of the article report.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru25.05.2012