Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a genetic disease found in older individuals, and is one of the most common genetic diseases.
Statistics
Approximately one percent of all Americans over the age of 60 have been diagnosed with PD. This equates to about 60,000 total Americans living with PD, and over 10 million worldwide.
According to www.parkinson.org, “…an estimated four percent of people with PD are diagnosed before age 50.” This is called “early-onset PD” where the patient is between the ages of 21 and 50 and is diagnosed. We will get more in depth about early-onset PD later, but here’s a quick summary. Although the average age at diagnosis is 60, anything above 50 is considered “normal”. Individuals who develop early-onset PD also tend to have a less severe/slower experience with parkinsons, although the same symptoms still apply to both.
Symptoms
The early symptoms of PD are tremors in the hand followed by other limbs and body parts. This is obviously because Parkinson’s is a motor disease that eventually leads to paralysis. PD is also found to be a cause for deteriorating balance problems in patients, along with rigid body parts, dizziness, and even depression. Since PD is a genetic disease, it can be the cause for a whole host of problems, from having a hard time walking to weight loss.
Why it happens
Parkinson’s disease is well known to be caused by nerve cells in the basal ganglia dying out. The basal ganglia is the part of the brain that creates the chemical of dopamine, which for lack of better words, is the chemical that makes you feel happy, or produces a euphoric feeling. Some scientists think that environmental factors share some of the blame for causing PD. For example, medicine experts at www.hopkinsmedicine.org say, “Exposure to farming chemicals, like pesticides and herbicides; Vietnam-era exposure to Agent Orange; and working with heavy metals, detergents and solvents have all been implicated and studied for a clearer link.”.
History of Parkinson’s
Parkinson’s was first described and diagnosed by its namesake doctor, Dr. James Parkinson, but it was seen in humans for as long as the written record goes. It was first formally recognised in the Indian medicine of Ayurveda under the name of Kampavata,in which kampa roughly translates to tremor in Sanskrit.(www.news.medical.net). The formal diagnosis arrived in the western world in 1817, where Dr. James Parkinson described it as “Shaking Palsy”.
Basic Genetic Rundown
The problem of PD mostly has to do with PARKIN2, a gene that usually helps break down and recycle old proteins. As you can probably tell, this gene is a critical part of our body’s biological factory. Think about your neighborhood. Say people just stopped picking up your trash to put in landfills or get recycled. So much trash would pile up that eventually it would get to the point at which it inhibits the other parts of your life. Such is the same with PD. The dump-truck (PARKIN2), broke down and couldn’t pick up your trash, so your neighborhood (your body) kept on operating at a lower and lower efficiency. It should be noted that the gene that causes early-onset PD is different (PARKIN7), but has more or less the same function. PD is a polygenic trait, which means that more than one gene influences the trait, and is also part of an autosomal pattern, which basically means that you only need one altered allele from a parent for the trait to be passed down between generations.
What we can do to help
We can help combat PD by knowing the basic symptoms and being attentive to our loved ones, especially if they are over the age of 60. Although PD does not have a definitive cure (yet) you can help by donating to research centers who help further our understanding and the global search for the cure.
Sources
Learning Medicine 