Hi Moneesha:
I think you should test for the thyroid function too. Usully this also goes 
down several years head of time.
R. Rajaraman
********************
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Moneesha Sharma" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2008 4:12 AM
Subject: Re: Your Nose and PD


> This was certainly the case with my husband.  Some years previous to his
> diagnosis of PD, we were surprised to find that he was gradually losing 
> his
> sense of smell.  We put it down to the fact that he had been a smoker in 
> his
> younger days.  I found out about the link between PD and a loss of the 
> sense
> of smell when I was searching the net for symptoms of PD before we 
> actually
> went to the doctor.  He had all the initial symptoms including a loss of 
> the
> sense of smell.
> Moneesha Sharma
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 6:58 AM, rayilynlee <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Your nose may warn about onset of Parkinson's
>>
>> From correspondents in Washington, United States, 11:31 AM IST
>>
>> An impaired sense of smell occurs in the earliest stages of Parkinson's
>> disease (PD) and there is mounting evidence that it may precede motor
>> symptoms by several years, according to a study.
>> The study, by researchers at the Pacific Health Research Institute in
>> Hawaii, found that smell impairment can precede the development of PD in
>> men
>> by at least four years.
>> Findings of the study have been published in the latest edition of the
>> Annals of Neurology, the official journal of the American Neurological
>> Association.
>> Led by G. Webster Ross of the VA Pacific Islands Health Care System and
>> the
>> Pacific Health Research Institute in Honolulu, Hawaii, the study included
>> 2,267 men who received an olfactory test and were followed for up to 
>> eight
>> years to find out if they developed PD. During the course of follow-up, 
>> 35
>> men developed the disease.
>> The results showed that a smell identification deficit could predate the
>> development of PD by at least four years, although it was not a strong
>> predictor beyond this time period.
>> A decreased ability to identify odours was associated with older age,
>> smoking, more coffee consumption, less frequent bowel movements, lower
>> cognitive function and excessive daytime sleepiness, but even after
>> adjusting for these factors, those with poor odour identification had a
>> five
>> times greater risk of developing PD.
>> The pathology of smell impairment in PD is not completely understood, but
>> nerve loss and the formation of Lewy bodies, abnormal clumps of proteins
>> inside nerves cells that are thought to be a marker of PD, are known to
>> take
>> place in the olfactory structures of patients with the disease.
>> The authors note that one study involving brain dissection of dead
>> patients
>> with neurological disease found that olfactory structures are the 
>> earliest
>> brain regions affected by Lewy degeneration, which supports the idea that
>> an
>> impaired sense of smell could be one of the earliest signs of the 
>> disease.
>> (Staff Writer, (c) IANS)
>>
>> Rayilyn Brown
>> Board Member AZNPF
>> Arizona Chapter National Parkinson's Foundation
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
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