Parkinson's Disease

[Soren]

Hi guys. When my mother was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease (PD) I began doing a lot of research. I knew from the offset that the traditional mainstream view of the pathology of PD would most likely be wrong or have major holes in it. As I did my research this became abundantly clear. There was the genetic view, which seems to be the mainstream's default solution to any disease. However, the overwhelming evidence has led to a major pullback of this view. It used to be believed that PD was a genetic disease but now the mainstream view says that about 20% of PD is down to genetics.


Over the past couple of months I have put together a paper of what I believe would be the best treatment options for PD if one is to treat it as a metabolic disorder rather than a genetic disorder. I wrote this because my mother's doctor is a very open minded man who does not follow the mainstream and is very open to new thoughts and ideas. However, instead of just simply recommending certain supplements without evidence and research to back it up, I decided to write this paper to present to him with as much evidence as possible to back up my recommendations. Unfortunately I think that even a doctor as open minded as he is would be reluctant to follow the advice of an untrained individual.


Virtually every single thought, supplement, dietary or lifestyle recommendation that I put into this paper I arrived at from reading these forums. The studies people post and the thoughts they write about, everything in this paper is essentially a compilation of knowledge and data that I either directly or indirectly got from Ray Peat and these forums. I in particular would like to thank @haidut who was unknowingly instrumental in this paper. His prolific posting of studies as well as his own thoughts and discussions has been invaluable. Many of the thoughts conclusions and studies I reach in this paper are directly as a result of things he has posted so THANK YOU. For example, the section in the paper on PUFA is almost lifted verbatim from a posting by haidut. I would also like to thank Danny Roddy, whose Bioenergetic podcasts have also been hugely helpful in expanding my knowledge and helping to write this paper.


My reason for posting this paper is three-fold:


1) First, as a thank you to everyone on these forums who helped make this paper possible, without you I would have never got very far .


2) Second, I want to help anyone else who is interested in the topic of PD. Hopefully this paper will act as a good resource.


3) I want to start a discussion about PD and hopefully improve on what I have written. I am very open to any critiques, criticisms or additions to what I have written.


Formatting

I am not sure how the format of the paper will appear in this forum so I might just post a link to it in a google doc form. There are about 50-60 references throughout the paper in the form of footnotes that are also hyperlinks to the studies that they are referencing. I wrote this paper not with the intention of publishing it, it was written with convenience in mind for whomever was reading it, not to be critically reviewed, so apologies for any sloppiness because of this.

The paper has an index at the beginning that is numbered and color coded. Hopefully this will make it easy for people to navigate.

Any title that is underlined and in blue has a hyperlink to the study

I am going to post the paper in its entirety as well as a link to the paper in google docs format. I'd recommend reading it in the google docs link as it will be easier to navigate and for some reason when I post in the forum the forum does not include the footnotes which is where most of the references are.

Google Docs Link: Parkinson's Disease Paper

Thanks to everyone who takes the time to have a read and thank you to everyone on this forum who made this paper possible.

PDF is attached below:

 

[haidut]

Hi guys. When my mother was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease (PD) I began doing a lot of research. I knew from the offset that the traditional mainstream view of the pathology of PD would most likely be wrong or have major holes in it. As I did my research this became abundantly clear. There was the genetic view, which seems to be the mainstream's default solution to any disease. However, the overwhelming evidence has led to a major pullback of this view. It used to be believed that PD was a genetic disease but now the mainstream view says that about 20% of PD is down to genetics.


Over the past couple of months I have put together a paper of what I believe would be the best treatment options for PD if one is to treat it as a metabolic disorder rather than a genetic disorder. I wrote this because my mother's doctor is a very open minded man who does not follow the mainstream and is very open to new thoughts and ideas. However, instead of just simply recommending certain supplements without evidence and research to back it up, I decided to write this paper to present to him with as much evidence as possible to back up my recommendations. Unfortunately I think that even a doctor as open minded as he is would be reluctant to follow the advice of an untrained individual.


Virtually every single thought, supplement, dietary or lifestyle recommendation that I put into this paper I arrived at from reading these forums. The studies people post and the thoughts they write about, everything in this paper is essentially a compilation of knowledge and data that I either directly or indirectly got from Ray Peat and these forums. I in particular would like to thank @haidut who was unknowingly instrumental in this paper. His prolific posting of studies as well as his own thoughts and discussions has been invaluable. Many of the thoughts conclusions and studies I reach in this paper are directly as a result of things he has posted so THANK YOU. For example, the section in the paper on PUFA is almost lifted verbatim from a posting by haidut. I would also like to thank Danny Roddy, whose Bioenergetic podcasts have also been hugely helpful in expanding my knowledge and helping to write this paper.


My reason for posting this paper is three-fold:


1) First, as a thank you to everyone on these forums who helped make this paper possible, without you I would have never got very far .


2) Second, I want to help anyone else who is interested in the topic of PD. Hopefully this paper will act as a good resource.


3) I want to start a discussion about PD and hopefully improve on what I have written. I am very open to any critiques, criticisms or additions to what I have written.


Formatting

I am not sure how the format of the paper will appear in this forum so I might just post a link to it in a google doc form. There are about 50-60 references throughout the paper in the form of footnotes that are also hyperlinks to the studies that they are referencing. I wrote this paper not with the intention of publishing it, it was written with convenience in mind for whomever was reading it, not to be critically reviewed, so apologies for any sloppiness because of this.

The paper has an index at the beginning that is numbered and color coded. Hopefully this will make it easy for people to navigate.

Any title that is underlined and in blue has a hyperlink to the study

I am going to post the paper in its entirety as well as a link to the paper in google docs format. I'd recommend reading it in the google docs link as it will be easier to navigate and for some reason when I post in the forum the forum does not include the footnotes which is where most of the references are.

Link to Paper: Parkinson's Disease Paper

Thanks to everyone who takes the time to have a read and thank you to everyone on this forum who made this paper possible.

Thanks Soren! This is very nice indeed. If you want, you can try and submit this paper for actual publication in the open journal PeerJ (www.peerj.com) as it is one of the few journals that would probably accept a bioenergetic approach to a neurodegenerative disease like PD.

 

[Blossom]

It works! I can't wait to read completely.

 

[Soren]

Thanks Soren! This is very nice indeed. If you want, you can try and submit this paper for actual publication in the open journal PeerJ (www.peerj.com) as it is one of the few journals that would probably accept a bioenergetic approach to a neurodegenerative disease like PD.

Thanks for the suggestion and the vote of confidence Haidut. It would require a lot more work to make it polished enough before I felt confident enough to submit it for publication, maybe someday.

Also I feel I would have to rewrite it with a lot more of my own content and words as most of the content is paraphrased or quotes from studies arranged in a way that shows the benefit of certain treatments.

 

[charlie]

It's so nice of you to make this paper available to everyone.

Great work Soren!

I moved the PDF to your original post, and by simply clicking on the attachment it will open directly into the PDF.

 

[charlie]

..submit it for publication, maybe someday.

How cool would that be?!?!?

 

[Soren]

Great work Soren!

I moved the PDF to your original post, and by simply clicking on the attachment it will open directly into the PDF.

Thanks Charlie

 

[Ledo]

Nice!

You didn't make dosage recommendations ? (I only scanned briefly).

 

[bluewren]

Great reading, Soren! Clear and concise. Thanks for posting.

 

[Soren]

Nice!

You didn't make dosage recommendations ? (I only scanned briefly).

Hi Ledo. I briefly talk about dosing in Section J of the paper.

Here is what I say on dosing: "It goes without saying that if one is to recommend any of these supplements, there needs to be some investigation as to how they will interact with each-other. One needs to determine the individual dosing of supplements in the context of the unique circumstances of each individual."

If you read the document in the google documents format there is an index on the side of the paper that should make it easy to find parts that are relevant. Many of the studies I've linked to have information about the dosing that was used in the studies. This paper was not really written with specific dosage recommendations in mind, but mainly just to present how these treatments might be beneficial for someone who has PD. Also every individual is unique and everything has to be taken in the context of that individual. I am in no way qualified to be saying what dosing may be good for someone, everyone's circumstances are unique and one has to be very careful about any recommendations.

That being said if someone wants to determine what are good doses for the treatments I've presented here you could do a lot worse then searching these forums to see what others recommend for individual supplements.

 

[Soren]

Great reading, Soren! Clear and concise. Thanks for posting.

Thanks bluewren, glad you enjoyed it and thanks for giving it a read, it means a lot when someone has a read through and posts their feedback

 

[keith]

Thanks for sharing. Well done!

 

[Soren]

One thing I did not include the paper is any discussion of Magnesium. I think magnesium is very important for overall health as well as brain health and given the fact that many of these supplements increase metabolism one might want to consider supplementing with magnesium if taking anything that increases the metabolism.

 

[BingDing]

Soren, I have to agree that your paper is very solid.

My 2 cents, in the part of the brain that regulates movement or motion, the main neurotransmitter is dopamine. As far as I know the primary, if not only, biochemical pathway to dopamine in the brain is tyrosine -> L-dopa -> dopamine. Tyrosine is one of ~7 large, neutral (in ph) amino acids that share an active transport mechanism across the blood/ brain barrier. That transport mechanism is assumed to be always saturated. Supplementing tyrosine on an empty stomach, such as the first thing in the morning, would maximize the transfer of tyrosine into the brain and optimize the use of tyrosine as a dopamine precursor.

I am far from a PD patient but at 60 years old I feel various difficulties moving. In the past walking down stairs has been an issue. A couple weeks ago I bought a Bellicon mini-trampoline because my gf has one. Man, did I feel like a spaz the first time I got on it. But a few days of practice and tyrosine in the morning, and I'm doing pretty good. And similar experiments with tyrosine in the past have had similar results.

One person posted on a thread about this that the benefits fade away after awhile. I think that may be true, but it is not certain. In any event, some improvement is better than a steady decline, IMHO.

 

[Soren]

Soren, I have to agree that your paper is very solid.

My 2 cents, in the part of the brain that regulates movement or motion, the main neurotransmitter is dopamine. As far as I know the primary, if not only, biochemical pathway to dopamine in the brain is tyrosine -> L-dopa -> dopamine. Tyrosine is one of ~7 large, neutral (in ph) amino acids that share an active transport mechanism across the blood/ brain barrier. That transport mechanism is assumed to be always saturated. Supplementing tyrosine on an empty stomach, such as the first thing in the morning, would maximize the transfer of tyrosine into the brain and optimize the use of tyrosine as a dopamine precursor.

I am far from a PD patient but at 60 years old I feel various difficulties moving. In the past walking down stairs has been an issue. A couple weeks ago I bought a Bellicon mini-trampoline because my gf has one. Man, did I feel like a spaz the first time I got on it. But a few days of practice and tyrosine in the morning, and I'm doing pretty good. And similar experiments with tyrosine in the past have had similar results.

One person posted on a thread about this that the benefits fade away after awhile. I think that may be true, but it is not certain. In any event, some improvement is better than a steady decline, IMHO.

Hi BingDing, thanks for giving the paper a read and thanks for the feedback. I don't really know how much I can comment on supplemental tyrosine and its effectiveness for PD as I have not examined that very closely. I did used to supplement tyrosine myself as a pre-workout and focus supplement and I definitely felt the effects from it. Also I think @haidut posted once how Tyrosine helps to lower cortisol so that could possibly also help since chronically high cortisol can be so damaging to the brain.

A brief google search I was able to find one study conducted back in 1989 that seemed to show promise for Tyrosine and PD treatment, Study.

"That l-dopa represents a major advance in Parkinson treatment should not hide that a number of problems remain unanswered: on-off effects, transient improvements... Based on the beneficial effects of l-tyrosine in dopamine dependent depressions and narcolepsy, five naive patients diagnosed after sleep polygraphy criteria and five l-dopa and/or dopamine agonist treated patients were prescribed l-tyrosine as a long-term treatment. For some patients, 3 years of L-tyrosine treatment was followed by better clinical results and many fewer side effects than with L-DOPA or dopamine agonists. However, the theoretical long-term sparing neurons potentiality of approach requires further studies."

Although I am not sure how relevant the study is today.

 

[heartnhands]

Nice!

You didn't make dosage recommendations ? (I only scanned briefly).

Great work!

 

[BobbyDukes]

Man, did I feel like a spaz the first time I got on it.

People nowadays don't use offensive terminology like this (unless they are ignorant, or poorly educated). Just making you aware. Thanks.

 

[Soren]

Just an update to anyone who is interested.

My mother's doctor read my paper and agreed with everything I presented!! PD not being genetic but a disease down to environmental factors, likely the result of chronic stress, malfunctioning energy metabolism, everything (with the exception of fish oil, yea I know ). He actually agreed with me 100% that PUFAs are bad and that Fish Oil is a PUFA but that it is different. When I pointed out to him that many of the fish oil supplements that we buy have gone rancid from being out in high temperatures he also agreed and suggested that was likely why most of the fish oils were seen to be bad because they were rancid before they were ingested. I stupidly forgot to mention that even if you have fish oil that has not been turned rancid, once ingested the human body is hot enough that it will turn rancid anyway . But no matter, my mother is listening to my advice on this and not taking fish oils.

He also agreed with the simple treatments I recommended to improve her PD symptoms; aspirin, lower estrogen, eliminate PUFAs, red light, methylene blue. He was just cautious on pursuing all these things at once due to the risk of the damage that can be done from too many anti-oxidants. So we have begun implementing these things piecemeal, starting with B-vitamins.

One of the things I referenced in the paper are the studies that show deficiency in certain B-vitamins are involved in the pathology and symptoms of PD. My mother's doctor did some tests that I think were meant to show the biological activity of B-vitamins in her cells and sure enough she was found to be deficient in many of them. To clarify I do not think this was a blood test. I am led to believe that it was more sophisticated although I am not sure on the details and will have to update that when I know.

He said that she was deficient in Thiamine, B12, B3.

He recommended that she get a vitamin B12 shot once a week. Now I am somewhat nervous about this and maybe it is something @haidut could help answer. I have read that excess b12 might contribute to cancer. However, if one has a deficiency surely it is safe and advisable to supplement it. Also I am unsure as to what is the best source and method of delivery for Thiamine when it comes to PD. In my paper I referenced a study where patients given thiamine and it helped reverse the symptoms of PD "Injection of high doses of thiamine was effective in reversing the symptoms, suggesting that the abnormalities in thiamine-dependent processes could be overcome by diffusion-mediated transport at supranormal thiamine concentrations.". However, I do not know what form the Thiamine was in or how high the dose was. I believe that @haidut mentioned it in a podcast with Danny and that it was 100mg but I cannot be sure.

Hope you all find this update interesting, look forward to any feedback and I'll continue to keep you posted with progress as much as I can.

 

[charlie]

Fantastic update Soren!

 

[moss]

My mother's doctor read my paper and agreed with everything I presented!! PD not being genetic but a disease down to environmental factors, likely the result of chronic stress, malfunctioning energy metabolism, everything (with the exception of fish oil, yea I know ). He actually agreed with me 100% that PUFAs are bad and that Fish Oil is a PUFA but that it is different.

Hi Soren

Thanks for your update and great your mother's Dr is on board, very encouraging.

I am curious as to when was your mother was diagnosed with PD and leading up to her diagnosis was she suffering from chronic stress?
And was there a significant stressful event that took place around 6-7 years before her diagnosis, such as a divorce, death etc?