Hi Listmembers,,
Hello again from lighthouse and lobster-land! I've finally waded
through 400 messages upon returning to Maine from a week in Florida, and,
I have a QUESTION that keeps coming up, which if answered by a large
sample (100 or more) of Listmembers worldwide, might help to unveil
aspects of the mystery of the GENES involved in Parkinson's Disease.
DO YOU HAVE A DIABETIC RELATIVE??
My older brother is a young onset diabetic, and I am a young onset
PWP.
And it turns out that 17 of 21 PWP's I initially surveyed in MAINE have a
diabetic relative!! That's an 81% incidence in this small sample of
PWP's!
In the human body, some of our dopamine is converted into
adrenaline, and adrenaline is the inhibitor of insulin. So our dopamine
supply and insulin levels are closely biochemically linked.
If there is a GENE which regulates the human normal tyrosine to
dopamine to adrenaline conversion pathway, that gene, if mutated or
somehow dysfunctional, might cause either Parkinson's (dopamine
deficiency), or diabetes (insulin deficiency) to develop. AND, we might
expect to observe more diabetics in PWP families.
17 of 21 PWP's in my survey in MAINE have a diabetic relative in
their family!! That incidence of 81% is WAY TOO HIGH to be random.
I'm just a PWP, not a high-stakes geneticist.
But it seems to me that this HIGH FREQUENCY of diabetics in our
families in Maine suggests that there IS a genetic explanation for
Parkinson's.
I think that if a large sample (100 or more) of Listmembers would
send a BRIEF comment to the list, we could get a better understanding of
the gene or genes involved in causing PD. This might help us figure out
the chemistry of CURING PD.
So, my question is, DO YOU HAVE A DIABETIC RELATIVE???
PWP's and CG's, PLEASE send a brief response. Comments on the
GENETIC theory I have put out here are of course more than welcome!!.
Ivan Suzman 47/10 [log in to unmask]
Portland, Maine
