Parkinson’s Disease Is Predominantly an Environmental Disease

DavidPS

This is an interesting position paper. One of the ideas is that by the time you can smell the polutants, they are already in your brain.

Parkinson’s Disease Is Predominantly an
Environmental Disease (2024)

Abstract. Parkinson’s disease is the world’s fastest growing brain disorder, and exposure to environmental toxicants is the principal reason. In this paper, we consider alternative, but unsatisfactory, explanations for its rise, including improved diagnostic skills, aging populations, and genetic causes. We then detail three environmental toxicants that are likely among the main causes of Parkinson’s disease—certain pesticides, the solvent trichloroethylene, and air pollution. All three environmental toxicants are ubiquitous, many affect mitochondrial functioning, and all can access humans via various routes, including inhalation and ingestion. We reach the hopeful conclusion that most of Parkinson’s disease is thus preventable and that we can help to create a world where Parkinson’s disease is increasingly rare.

I found this image to be interesting:

DavidPS

A proposal on how environmental exposure to toxicants may cause either body-first or brain-first Lewy body disease.

The Body, the Brain, the Environment,
and Parkinson’s Disease

Air pollution is a third toxicant that can readily be inhaled and thus implicated in the brain-first model of Lewy body disease. While synthetic pesticides and industrial solvents are largely products of the 20th century, air pollution predates Dr. Parkinson’s description of the disease. Industrial air pollution, including the infamous London fog, was well established (Fig. 3) by the time Dr. Parkinson wrote his essay in 1817. London’s air quality in 1800 was twenty times worse than it is now, on par with the
world’s most polluted cities (e.g., Delhi, India) today, and akin to what many North Americans experienced from Canadian wildfires in the summer of 2023

DavidPS

I have watching the air quality where I live by entering my zip code into the data base at airnow.gov I purposefully reduce the amount of time that I spend outdoors when the air quality is poor.

This site also has a map showing the coverage of smoke in my area at https://www.airnow.gov/wildfires/

It looks to me like most of Canada is currently covered with smoke from Alaskian wildfires. I seldom listen to the news on tv, but I do not think that these wildfires get the coverage that they deserve. I have been told that these Alaskian wildfires have burned underground over the winter and are the same fires from last year.

DavidPS

As for pollution numbers from the rest of the world, start with
Air Pollution in Europe: Real-time Air Quality Index Visual Map - https://aqicn.org/map/europe/

Mauritio

@DavidPS said in Parkinson’s Disease Is Predominantly an Environmental Disease:

As for pollution numbers from the rest of the world, start with
Air Pollution in Europe: Real-time Air Quality Index Visual Map - https://aqicn.org/map/europe/

Thanks, that's a good one.

yerrag

While all the above-mentioned items are not beneficial to our health, I feel there are other causes out there that are causing Parkinson's. To say Parkinson's is an environmental disease is to distract us from looking into causes that are probably closer to the nature of Parkinson's disease. It's a bit like David Copperfield plying his trade but not in a performance hall but in the doctor's clinic with the usual glazy-eyed patients.

I'm still thanking that CO² is not implicated here, UT then again what have they been saying about CO² that isn't tantamount to saying it is a pollutant?

Being that Parkinson's is being sold is an 'environmental' disease now, I wonder if it another front for the do-gooder 'environmentalists' to again drive their stake into the heart of humanity.

DavidPS

@yerrag - In 1817, James Parkinson published his essay reporting six people with paralysis agitans. The number of cases has grown tremendously in recent years. Certain pesticides, and the solvent trichloroethylene have been identified as probable causes. I know farmers who are convinced that Parkinsons Disease is genetic because members of their family (who lived on the farm) got the disease. Trichloroethylene (TCE) is used in the dry cleaning industry. It was preferred because it did not shrink the clothes during cleaning. People polluted their homes with TCE by airing their recently dry cleaned inside their house. This is well known. Marines who were stationed at Camp Lejeune because the drinking water was contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE), tetrachloroethylene (PCE), vinyl chloride (VC) and benzene. I do not think carbon dioxide will ever be implicated.

yerrag

@DavidPS

Your argument is well noted. I don't diminish the causality involved with those factors. But I fail to see why those factors mentioned are made at the exclusion of others. Except that the authors want to frame PD as predominantly environmental. I take exception to their mix of omission of other factors and their concentration of focus on the factors they call environmental. I also can't be sure of your reassurance that these folks won't frame CO² as part of the pollutants in their study. Their kind has for decades been blaming CO² with nary a mention of CO (carbon monoxide), and would obfuscate the distinction by simply calling us to lower our "carbon footprint." These are the same people who banned the use of carbogen in hospitals, and excoriate progesterone while praising estrogen.

I also want to add that I don't see the increases in PD as being unmistakably caused by the rise in incidences of wild fires. It is probably, not possibly, rooted in iatrogenic causes, particularly with the penchant for doctors to prescribe neurotoxin antibiotics of the fluroquinolone classes, and their m.o. is to tell patients that it is the only oralantibiotic that the dominant pathogen in a culture (urine or sputum) is sensitive to. There are alternatives such as essential oils that will do as good a job, but of course that is woo to the medical priestly class. I am living proof of that.