This inquiry from a friend on another list raises a question I can't
answer--any light to shed? Similar experiences with anemia?
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Dear Jane and Camilla --
For years, my father had a Parkinsonian type tremor, that was treated
successfully for a time with L-DOPA. However, we later discovered that
the cause of the difficulties was not PD, but was instead acute
megaloblastic anemia. The symptoms are quite similar, except that the
anemia in its later stages is characterized by dementia. A nutritionist-
hematologist who treated my father for the last four years of his life
recommended a diet very high in the vitamin B complex. It seemed to
help somewhat, and reversed some of the difficulties, though
dementia became much more pronounced as the anemia worsened,
or when he wasn't careful with his diet.
Since PD and this form of anemia show quite similar outward symptoms,
I wonder -- particularly with people in their 80's who have been diagnosed
with PD -- may be severely anemic as well, given the rigors of the Depression
and WWII, and the difficulties of getting proper nutrition at that time.
Camilla, is there any nutritional link to PD? My father's anemia (and two of
his sisters') began during the Depression. One aunt was treated -- again with
a high vitamin B complex diet, another died of acute kidney failure (also
linked to vitamin deficiency). Only the aunt who was treated is still living.
She's 78. My father would be 82 (he died at age 77), and his sister would
have been 84 this year (she died at age 57).
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