DURHAM, NC (Ivanhoe Newswire) – Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder that causes tremors, stiffness in the limbs, problems with balance, anxiety and depression. Approximately 90,000 people are diagnosed with the disease each year, and up to 10 million people worldwide have Parkinson's. The cause is unknown, but new research suggests it may begin in the gut and spread to the brain.
“My maternal grandmother lived to be 102 years old. She never got sick. My paternal aunts lived into their late 80s. They never got sick,” said Gregory L. Monroe Jr., 53.
No one in Gregory's family had Parkinson's disease—in fact, for most of his life, he didn't even know what it was—but when he was 40, he noticed his hands shaking while at work.
“I was working as a night security guard and was telling a customer the music was too loud and my hands started shaking,” he told Ivanhoe.
No one knows why, but Dr. Roger Liddle, a gastroenterologist at Duke University School of Medicine, is studying how the gut-brain connection may play a role.
“It has recently been discovered that there are specific cells in the lining of the intestine that connect to the vagus nerve and send signals to the brain,” says Dr. Liddle.
Now, Dr. Liddle's team is going a step further, focusing specifically on enteroendocrine cells found in the intestine.
“Our lab has found that these enteroendocrine cells contain proteins that are linked to Parkinson's disease,” explains Dr. Liddle.
When proteins malfunction, they form clumps that spread from cell to cell. These clumps, called Lewy bodies, are a primary sign of Parkinson's disease.
“We were surprised at how quickly this happened in mice,” says Dr. Liddle.
Dr. Riddle hopes that what he finds in his study can help stop Parkinson's before symptoms like tremors appear. Now other researchers around the country are studying ways to interrupt the brain-gut connection, with the goal of preventing Parkinson's altogether. Dr. Riddle also believes that if we can interrupt the brain-gut connection, we might be able to stop some other neurodegenerative diseases as well.
Contributors to this news report include producer Marcia Lewis, videographer Matt Goldschmidt and editor Roque Correa.
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