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> Subject: more on guts > September 02, 2009 > A kick in the guts for Parkinson's disease:=20 > Your gut has its own neural network. Called the enteric nervous system, = > it controls digestion and has as many neurons as the spinal cord. > > Parkinson's disease is a brain disorder that has been long associated = > with stomach upsets. These were often explained away as due to poor diet = > or stress, but it seems increasingly likely that the disease may also be = > affecting the neurons in the digestive system. > > It was originally thought just to destroy dopamine neurons in a deep = > brain structure called the nigrostriatal pathway, an effect which causes = > the distinctive movement problems, but it has become clear that the = > disorder causes damage throughout the nervous system via the formation = > of protein clumps called Lewy bodies. > > A new article in European Journal of Neuroscience suggests that = > Parkinson disease affects the enteric nervous system, which might tie = > together some curious findings in the medical literature that have = > remained unexplained for many years. > > Stomach upsets, swallowing and digestion problems have long been = > associated with Parkinson's but it has never really been clear why. > > While we commonly think of it purely in mechanical terms, digestion is = > remarkably complex process and the enteric nervous system is involved in = > the careful regulation of the muscle ripples of the gut, secretion of = > digestive fluids and blood flow to aid absorption. > > Damage to this system would cause exactly the sorts of problems that = > have been reported in Parkinson's disease patients and this fits with = > some previous findings that have been ignored for many years. > > Until recently, only one study had investigated whether the enteric = > nervous system was damaged in Parkinson's patients. It found that large = > numbers of the gut's dopamine neurons seemed to be missing in patients = > with the disorder. > > The next study appeared more than ten years later, this time looking for = > protein clumps in the gut of deceased patients, and found evidence that = > not only were these tell-tale signs present, but that the distribution = > suggested that neurons in the gut may be the first to be damaged. > > The author of this study, neuroscientist Heiko Braak now proposes the = > radical idea that while we know part of the risk for Parkinson's is = > genetic, maybe an environmental trigger - a virus - could get into the = > nervous system via the stomach, eventually triggering the brain changes = > that lead to the debilitating tremors and movement problems. > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn