Yes it's me again, nagging y'all about taking precautions against covid.

They're talking about Parkinson's here.

I want to make sure that everyone understands that Parkinson's isn't always Michael J Fox.

More often, Parkinson's is my dad, who had it for a few of years before it shut down all of his organs and he died.

And this was after his dementia and memory loss got so bad that he didn't know who anyone was except for me, and that's because I was living with him. He couldn't make his own food, he couldn't go to the bathroom by himself, he couldn't get dressed by himself.

There's no cure. There are ways to mitigate symptoms, but there is no cure.

Anyway yeah wear your flipping masks. If you don't care about yourself getting COVID, maybe think about the people who have to take care of you if Parkinson's becomes a thing.

A new blood test that detects Parkinson’s disease, potentially establishing a way to diagnose the condition before nervous system damage worsens. The new blood-based diagnostic test would be a major advancement for Parkinson’s disease, which afflicts 10 million people worldwide and is the second-most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer’s. “Currently, Parkinson’s disease is diagnosed largely based on clinical symptoms after significant neurological damage has already occurred,” says senior study author Laurie Sanders, an associate professor in the Duke University School of Medicine’s departments of neurology and pathology and member of the Duke Center for Neurodegeneration and Neurotherapeutics. “A simple blood test would allow us to diagnose the disease earlier and start therapies sooner,” Sanders says. “Additionally, a clear-cut diagnosis would accurately identify patients who could participate in drug studies, leading to the development of better treatments and potentially even cures.”

Continue Reading.

it sure feels like this is pretty much incontrovertible at this point....

Please consider joining me in supporting the effort to find a cure for Parkinson's. No obligation to d*nate or read the personal story [tw: death], but if you could share broadly in the event that someone could participate, fund, etc. - they are SO close to their 1mill. goal! It would be such a privilege to virtually assist them in achieving that.

Reasons Why Your Hands Are Shaking

Have you ever experienced the unsettling sensation of your hands trembling uncontrollably? It's a phenomenon that can leave you feeling anxious, self-conscious, and seeking answers. Hand tremors, commonly known as shaky hands, can manifest for various reasons, and understanding the underlying causes is essential for finding effective solutions.

Researchers discover a potential cause of Parkinson's disease

"Our findings are significant, as the cause of Parkinson's disease has gone unknown despite attempts to identify it throughout the last two centuries. The findings indicate that specific strains of Desulfovibrio bacteria are likely to cause Parkinson's disease. The disease is primarily caused by environmental factors, that is, environmental exposure to the Desulfovibrio bacterial strains that cause Parkinson's disease. Only a small share, or roughly 10%, of Parkinson's disease is caused by individual genes," says Professor Per Saris from the University of Helsinki.

Large Strawberries

I try to eat healthy due to Celiac, Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson's. Usually I have gluten free oatmeal and have fruit most mornings.

The other day I was at Aldi and I got some fresh strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. When I opened the strawberries I found some of them extremely big. As you can see by the above picture they are huge. Compared to the 1 dollar coin in the picture it gives a clue as to how big the strawberries actually are. Size wise they are as big as a mandarin orange, they are going on 3 inches in diameter. Those strawberries are going to help me with Celiac. Even though they're large they are sweet and juicey.

TikTok's Worst FAKER Is Still Hurting People

From a post by Emerald's mother (I also will not identify her by name or social accounts) about halfway through the vid:

"Understand that a person who fakes a mental illness, obviously HAS a mental illness."

Just...not the one Tics is trying to claim.

Also, have a brief rundown of Huntington's disease. It shares more in common with Parkinson's than Tourette's.

I'm posting here my sister's personal donation page with the Parkinson's foundation. It's been a long road with our dad. So many changes, so much information and struggle. There is still much work to be done in regards to this awful disease. If you or anyone you know may want to donate please check out her page. Anything will be helpful to help further research on this disease. Thanks for listening!

Best Mattress for Parkinson’s: The Secret to a Comfortable and Healthy Sleep

Best Mattress for Parkinson’s: Find out how to choose a mattress that can improve your sleep quality and comfort if you have Parkinson’s disease. Read More with City Mission

Dr. James Dunnick is board certified in internal medicine and cardiology. He is a Certified Professional Coder (CPC) through the American Academy of Professional Coders (AAPC) and is also certified in Health Care Quality and Management (CHCQM) by the American Board of Quality Assurance and Utilization Review Physicians (ABQAURP). Dr. Laura Dunnick is licensed through the FSBPT (Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy), specializing in Parkinson’s treatment and is working directly with patients with Parkinson's disease and strokes. www.SeniorCareAuthority.com

oh hell https://www.science.org/content/article/widely-used-chemical-strongly-linked-parkinson-s-disease

chemical solvent trichloroethylene (TCE)

It’s used today mainly in producing refrigerants and as a degreaser in heavy industry.

But in the 20th century, TCE was used for many purposes, including making decaffeinated coffee, dry cleaning, carpet cleaning, and as an inhaled surgical anesthetic for children and women in labor

Oh goody The paper:

Scientists develop AI tool to predict Parkinson's disease onset

Scientists develop AI tool to predict Parkinson's disease onset. There is no blood test to identify the risk of non-genetic Parkinson’s disease, but that may change if UNSW chemists’ new machine-learning tool is validated. May 10, 2023 - Scientists from UNSW Sydney with collaborators at Boston University have developed a tool that shows early promise in detecting Parkinson’s disease years before the first symptoms start appearing. In research published today in the journal ACS Central Science, the researchers described how they used neural networks to analyze biomarkers in patients’ bodily fluids. The researchers from UNSW School of Chemistry examined blood samples taken from healthy individuals gathered by the Spanish European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC). Focusing on 39 patients who developed Parkinson’s up to 15 years later, the team ran their machine learning program over datasets containing extensive information about metabolites – the chemical compounds that the body creates when breaking down food, drugs, or chemicals. After comparing these metabolites to those of 39 matched control patients – people in the same study who didn’t go on to develop Parkinson’s – the team was able to identify unique combinations of metabolites that could prevent or potentially be early warning signs for Parkinson’s. As UNSW researcher Diana Zhang explains, she with Associate Professor W. Alexander Donald developed a machine learning tool called CRANK-MS, which stands for Classification and Ranking Analysis using Neural network generates Knowledge from Mass Spectrometry. “The most common method of analysing metabolomics data is through statistical approaches,” says Ms Zhang “So to figure out which metabolites are more significant for the disease versus control groups, researchers usually look at correlations involving specific molecules. “But here we take into account that metabolites can have associations with other metabolites – which is where machine learning comes in. With hundreds to thousands of metabolites, we’ve used computational power to understand what’s going on.” A/Prof. Donald says that in addition to looking at combinations of metabolites, the researchers used an unedited list of data. “Typically, researchers using machine learning to examine correlations between metabolites and disease reduce the number of chemical features first, before they feed it into the algorithm,” Prof. Donald says “But here we feed all the information into CRANK-MS without any data reduction right at the start. And from that, we can get the model prediction and identify which metabolites are driving the prediction the most, all in one step. It means that if there are metabolites which may potentially have been missed using conventional approaches, we can now pick those up.”

How this could be significant for Parkinson’s disease

At present, Parkinson’s Disease is diagnosed by observing physical symptoms such as a resting hand tremor. There are no blood or laboratory tests to diagnose non-genetic cases of it. But atypical symptoms such as sleep disorder and apathy can present in people with Parkinson’s decades before the motor symptoms show up. CRANK-MS, therefore, could be used at the first sign of these atypical symptoms to rule in or out, the risk of developing Parkinson’s in the future. However, A/Prof Donald emphasizes that validation studies are needed using much larger cohorts and conducted in multiple parts of the globe before the tool could be used reliably. But in the limited cohort examined for this study, results were promising, with CRANK-MS able to analyze chemicals found in blood to detect Parkinson’s disease with an accuracy of up to 96 percent. "This study is interesting at multiple levels,” he says “First, the accuracy is very high for predicting Parkinson's disease in advance of clinical diagnosis. Second, this machine learning approach enabled us to identify chemical markers that are the most important in accurately predicting who will develop Parkinson's disease in the future. Third, some of the chemical markers that drive accurate prediction the most have been previously implicated by others to Parkinson's disease in cell-based assays but not in humans."

Food for thought

There were some interesting findings when examining the metabolites of people who went on to develop Parkinson’s in the study. For example, triterpenoids were found in lower concentrations in the blood of those who later developed Parkinson’s disease compared to those who did not. Triterpenoids are a known neuroprotectant that regulates oxidative stress and is commonly found in foods such as apples, olives, and tomatoes. A future study could examine whether eating these foods could naturally protect against developing Parkinson’s disease. Also worthy of further exploration was the presence of polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) in people who went on to develop Parkinson’s, which could be linked to being exposed to industrial chemicals. “We have evidence to suggest that it is PFAS, but we need more characterization data to be 100 percent sure,” says A/Prof Donald.

Freely available to all

CRANK-MS is a tool that is publicly available to any researchers who would like to use machine learning for disease diagnosis using metabolomics data. “We’ve built the model in such a way that it’s fit for purpose,” says Ms Zhang “The application of CRANK-MS to detect Parkinson’s disease is just one example of how AI can improve the way we diagnose and monitor diseases. What’s exciting is that CRANK-MS can be readily applied to other diseases to identify new biomarkers of interest. The tool is user-friendly where on average, results can be generated in less than 10 minutes on a conventional laptop.” Read the full article

Two people can create a field, and a field is invisible, but that's the force in the universe that makes things happen. You can see that in your personal relationship.

I made a documentary about my dad and the effect that exercising has had on his Parkinson’s Disease symptoms and his quality of life.