Good day,
I rarely get questions from Becky to ask of the members of the PD list,
but today I have one. She's starting seeing a new neurologist who doesn't
seem to be quite so limited by (my perception) the "How you doing, here's
your medication, PAY MY BILL, and I'll see you in a month" paradigm. This
new neurologist has a newsletter named the "Townsend Letter for Doctors and
Patients" from January 1997. Searching for the Townsend Letter on the
Internet, I've found that it's focus is on alternative medicines.
Within the January issue, is an article by Dr. David Perlmutter. I've
also found his article on the web. Some excerpts as printed in the
Townsend Letter follow:
Parkinson's disease has, until now, been described as being exclusively a
"brain disorder." Indeed, in 1960, researchers first demonstrated that a
specific part of the brain called the basal ganglia functioned abnormally
in Parkinson's disease. Various medicines were created to supply the brain
chemicals missing in Parkinson's patients, and these medications remain the
mainstay of treatment. Unfortunately, this approach is entirely
symptomatic. This is to say that these medicines, although quite helpful in
reducing the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, do nothing for the underlying
disease process itself which typically worsens with time.
New and exciting research has recently demonstrated that a majority of
patients with Parkinson's disease have a defect in one or more liver
enzymes which, when functioning normally, act to detoxify various
environmental poisons to which we are exposed. Various epidemiological
studies have demonstrated a significant increased incidence of Parkinson's
disease in populations having a higher exposure to environmental toxins. In
a fascinating report appearing in the Archives of Environmental Health
(1990), Goldsmith found an extremely high incidence of Parkinson's disease
on three adjacent kibbutzim in the Negev region of Israel whose water was
supplied from wells draining a common aquifer.
The incidence of Parkinson's disease was reported to be 500% greater in
each of the three kibbutzim than in the remainder of the region. A history
of occupational herbicide use has been described as significantly
increasing risk of Parkinson's disease by about three fold with data also
suggesting a dose response relationship between the duration of cumulative
life time exposure to agricultural work and risk of Parkinson's disease. At
a recent international symposium on Parkinson's disease, research was
presented demonstrating a very high correlation between Parkinson's disease
and the use of pesticides. In comparing one farming area southwest of
Montreal where pesticides were used in large amounts to areas in the same
region with low pesticide use, the incidence of Parkinson's disease was
seven times greater in the former.
Why wouldn't everyone with these types of toxic exposure develop
Parkinson's disease? The answer may lie in the defective liver detoxifying
enzymes described earlier. Thus, most people by virtue of having an
adequate liver detoxification system, may not suffer significant ill
effects when exposed to various environmental toxic insults. Parkinson's
patients on the other hand, because of their defective liver enzyme
systems, may actually potentiate relatively low-level neuro toxic chemicals
allowing the brain to be damaged and producing Parkinson's disease.
Recently, therapeutic techniques have been developed utilizing nutritional
approaches in an attempt to enhance the function of the liver
detoxification enzymes. In 1992, Dr. Jeffrey Bland described a nutritional
intervention program designed to improve the function of these
detoxification enzymes. His research demonstrated a significant increase
in the liver's ability to detoxify various toxic substances after three
weeks on a specific dietary program augmented in certain nutrients known to
be helpful for liver function.
** end of quote from The Perlmutter Letter **
By visiting the following URL you can see the entire text of The
Perlmutter Letter. http://www.perlhealth.com/smr_news.htm If any of you
have trouble viewing this page and would like to see the balance of the
article, please email me offline and I'll send you the balance of the
article. (I may already be too long and haven't gotten to Becky's question
yet. :-}) )
Within the text of the Townsend Letter is a reference to a product called
UltraClear Plus along with other aspects of a protocol to detoxify the
liver. Finally, the question. Have any of you heard of the Townsend
Letter for Doctors and Patients or of the UltraClear Plus product? Have
any of you tried UltraClear Plus? Have any of you followed a protocol for
detoxifying the liver and if so, are you willing to share results?
Thank you,
Jeff Jones part time CG for Becky, Seattle, WA
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* The fellow who boasts of an open mind may only have a vacant one. *
