Parkinson S Disease

People with Parkinson's disease showed marked improvement after surgeons implanted in their brains chemical-producing cells taken from the eye of a dead donor, researchers have reported. Cells from the inner, or pigment, layer of the eye's retina make levodopa, which Parkinson's patients commonly take in pill form to replace lost production of the neurotransmitter dopamine.

In pill form, antioxidants may not do much to prevent Parkinson's disease, new research indicates, but at least one shows promise when eaten in food. When researchers analyzed the food frequency questionnaires and supplement records of more than 100,000 participants in an ongoing health study, they discovered that getting large amounts of antioxidants from pills, even when combined with food sources, didn't help prevent Parkinson's disease.

New research using rats suggests that long-term exposure to a widely used pesticide kills brain cells and triggers debilitating physical symptoms associated with Parkinson's disease. Scientists say the experiment's results strongly indicate what scientists have suspected for several years--that the most common form of Parkinson's might result from toxins in the environment.

The first U.S. patient to receive a graft of fetal brain tissue as therapy for Parkinson's disease has shown substantial improvement in the 15 months since the surgery, Dr. Curt R. Freed, a neurologist at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver, reported last week in the Archives of Neurology. Parkinson's disease, which affects as many as 500,000 Americans, results from the loss of brain cells that secrete the hormone dopamine.

U.S. and Canadian researchers are looking for people with early symptoms of Parkinson's disease in the largest study ever of the degenerative brain disorder. The $10-million study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, "is the first major approach to getting at a cure for the disease," said Dr. Ira Shoulson, a professor of neurology at the University of Rochester. The school, which announced the study earlier this month, is one of the country's leading centers for Parkinson's research.