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(I was so surprised to see this, I thought I'd use it for our newletter. Perhaps some of you missed it! nina) Chronic LD not toxic, may promote neural recovery Date: 1/19/99 Chronic levodopa is not toxic for remaining dopamine neurons, but instead promotes their recovery, in rats with moderate nigrostriatal lesions MG Murer, G Dziewczapolski, LB Menalled, MC Garcia, Y Agid, O Gershanik, R Raisman-Vozari Annals of Neurology, 1998, Vol 43, Iss 5, pp 561-575 Six months of oral l-dopa caused no excess loss of dopaminergic neurons versus untreated controls, and may have promoted recovery of surviving neurons, according to this study on OHDA-lesioned rats. Rats were unilaterally injected with either saline or one of two quantities of OHDA (to produce moderate vs. severe lesions). Members of each group were randomly assigned to receive either vehicle or oral l-dopa. Neuronal survival was quantified by immunoautoradiography of tyrosine hydroxylase, vesicular monoamine transporter, and dopamine transporter. Results showed: a) L-dopa treatment caused no loss of dopaminergic neurons in either sham-lesioned or OHDA-lesioned rats compared to sham-lesioned, non-treated controls b) L-dopa treatment caused no reduction in terminal axonal arborization c) In the moderately lesioned group, treated rats showed, "in the denervated regions of the striatum, significantly higher levels of the three dopaminergic markers than their corresponding vehicle-treated control group, and also an increased density of TH-immunoreactive fibers." The authors suggest the recovery is likely to be due to axonal sprouting of surviving dopaminergic neurons. They also note that their study provided no evidence of accompanying functional recovery in this subgroup. In discussing the relevance of these findings to human PD patients, they state "our results cannot be considered as definitive evidence of an absence of toxicity of chronic levodopa in PD patients" but note that other recent findings support the absence of l-dopa toxicity as well. An editorial by Stanley Fahn accompanies the article. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Copyright 2000 WE MOVE Editor: Richard Robinson ([log in to unmask]) This service is provided free of charge to the Internet community, courtesy of WEMOVE.org. This document may be freely redistributed by email only in its unedited form. We encourage you to share it with your colleagues. ================== janet paterson wrote: > > Subject: Re: chronic levodopa use toxic? > > From: DIANE/GREG NICOLAOU <[log in to unmask]> > > Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 18:01:41 -0400 > > Bravo Janet, Well said. Diane > ----- Original Message ----- > From: janet paterson <[log in to unmask]> > To: <[log in to unmask]> > Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2001 8:04 AM > Subject: chronic levodopa use toxic? > > > hi all > > > > as far as i have learned, dyskinesias and dystonias > > associated with pd and levodopa (sinemet) longterm, > > are connected to overmedication of levodopa > > as the disease progresses and the response to meds > > has to be fine tuned to a greater degree > > > > in other words, as my neurologist put it, > > the 'window' for good symptomatic response > > beteween undermedicated 'poverty of movement' > > and overmedicated dyskinesia and dystonia > > (maybe one could coin the term a 'surfeit of movement') > > gets narrower and narrower > > > > i think the real 'blame' here > > lies with pd and its degenerative aspect not the meds > > > > that is the greatest problem we face at the moment > > in re long term management of pd > > in my humble opinion > > > > i like to think of it as fine tuning an aging maserati > > (i wish!) > > > > a sledgehammer approach does not work > > > > we cannot simply throw more meds at pd > > to make the symptoms go away > > > > > > janet > > thirteen/sixteen years and still truckin > > > > janet paterson: an akinetic rigid subtype, albeit perky, parky . > > pd: 54/41/37 cd: 54/44/43 tel: 613 256 8340 email: [log in to unmask] . > > snail mail: 375 Country Street, Apt 301, Almonte, Ontario, Canada, K0A 1A0 > . > > a new voice: the nnnewsletter: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/janet313/ . > > a new voice: the wwweb site: http://www.geocities.com/janet313/ . > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: > mailto:[log in to unmask] > > In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] > In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] > In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn