Print

Print


Scientific American article
I finally saw the article on PD in Scientific American (Jan 1997).
It's a pretty good summary, better than I expected. Quite a bit of
space on the controversial oxidative stress hypothesis (you'll see
why shortly). Proposed reason for failure of the antioxidant
vitamin E to slow progression of PD is, it doesn't cross the blood-
brain barrier; very plausible. And some authorship surprises: Up to
now, I thought the main credit for introducing levodopa should go
to G. Cotzias, but this article gives most of the credit to Swiss
neurologist W. Birkmayer. And I thought Birkmayer, as chief
promoter and marketer of selegiline (Eldepryl), was responsible for
its introduction, but in fact the authors of this article,
M. Youdim and P. Riederer, discovered the value of selegiline and
were awarded a medal for it. Needless to add, they still feel that
oxidative stress may be an important causative factor in PD.
Cheers,
Joe



J. R. Bruman (818) 789-3694
3527 Cody Road
Sherman Oaks CA 91403