No progress has been made in the development of drugs to stop the progression of Parkinson’s Disease. Here the author has presented a novel approach to stopping the disease using a dietary supplement primarily composed of Mannitol. In vivo animal studies have shown that Mannitol was able to break up alpha-synuclein clusters and restore functioning in transgenic drosophila and mice. The author, who has Parkinson’s, used himself as a subject and was able to achieve similar results.
References
[1]
Surguchov, A. (2008) Molecular and Cellular Biology of Synucleins. International Review of Cell and Molecular Biology, 270, 225-317. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1937-6448(08)01406-8
[2]
Bartels, T., Choi, J.G. and Selkoe, D.J. (2011) A-Synuclein Occurs Physiologically as a Helically Folded Tetramer That Resists Aggregation. Nature, 477, 107-110. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature10324
[3]
Orenstein, S.J., Kuo, S.H., Tasset, L., Loga, H., et al. (2013) Interplay of LRRK@2 with Chaperone-mEdiated Autophagy. Nature Neuroscience, 394-406. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nn.3350
[4]
American Friends of Tel Aviv University. Artificial Sweetener a Potential Treatment for Parkinson’s Disease. ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 17 June 2013. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130617122401.htm
[5]
Shaltiel-Karyo, R., Frenkel-Pinter, M., Rockenstein, E., Patrick, C., Levy-Sakin, M., Schiller, A., Egoz-Matia, N., Masliah, E., Segal, D. and Gazit. E. (2013) A Blood-Brain Barrier (BBB) Disrupter Is Also a Potent-Synuclein (-syn) Aggregation Inhibitor: A NOVEL DUAL MECHANISM OF MANNITOL FOR THE TREATMENT OF PARKINSON DISEASE (PD). Journal of Biological Chemistry, 288, 17579. http://dx.doi.org/10.1074/jbc.M112.434787