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At 11:29 AM 2000/05/19 -0400, i wrote, in part: >Electronic response to: >EDITORIALS >Depression in Parkinson's disease >Hervé Allain, Stéphane Schuck, and Nicolas Mauduit >BMJ 2000; 320: 1287-1288 >15 May 2000 >Olfactory disorder and Parkinson’s Disease >Dear Editor, >Aside from motor and cognitive deficits, Parkinson patients also >manifest an olfactory deficit. Decrease of olfactory function and >odor aversion have been reported among the first symptoms in >patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) by several authors [1-3]. >A large number of clinical studies have also reported that olfactory >loss in idiopathic PD is bilateral, present in hemiparkinsonism, >unrelated to the stage or clinical subtype of the disease, and >independent of antiparkinsonian medication.[4] [2] The intranasal >chemosensory trigeminal system seemingly was neither affected by >the neuronal degeneration seen in PD nor by treatment with >antiparkinsonian drugs.[2]. >The olfactory vector hypothesis even suggests that the causative agent >for PD enters the brain via the nasal route, however the reason for >olfactory dysfunction may be more subtle. It has been proposed that >the initial causative event in PD may start in the rhinencephalon >(olfactory brain) prior to damage in the basal ganglia. ... this was very interesting to me some of you may know that i can attribute possible cause of my pd to a head trauma, a pesticide exposure, and a rare virus which all took place within one year in 1981 at my age 34 the pesticide was one called Baygon, used in the caribbean outlawed in north america prolonged exposure to it due to ignorance caused my sense of taste to be profoundly affected for several hours [and lord knows what else] i also think that my lack of a lot of the more common secondary symptoms of pd may also be attributable to the 'trauma' concept as opposed to general deterioration/aging. 16 years after my first symptoms showed up and 12 years after diagnosis and starting on levodopa i can still appear to be "disease free" for hours at a stretch [albeit with more and more careful med management as the years go by] janet janet paterson 53 now / 41 dx / 37 onset 613 256 8340 / PO Box 171 Almonte Ontario K0A 1A0 Canada visit my website "a new voice" at: http://www.geocities.com/janet313/