Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Significant breakthrough in search for Parkinson's biomarker

michaeljfox.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 196 posts

Re: Significant breakthrough in search for Parkinson's biomarker

#121

Post by TexanFeller »

skottk wrote: post #113

Had to start researching this when a family member was recently diagnosed. Parkinson's has many forms and many causes. There's a big divide between Parkinson's _disease_ (idiopathic Parkinson's) and Parkinsonism from a variety of sources - stroke, drug-induced, and so on. There are also other conditions, like progressive supranuclear palsy, that are considered either to masquerade as Parkinsonism or to constitute ano…

> Parkinson's has many forms and many causes.

A lot of my family were farmers. I've had close relatives die with severe Parkinsons, primarily those that farmed their whole life. Their theory was that it was really exposure to a lot of toxic farm chemicals. I can imagine Parkinsons turning out to be several different conditions with similar symptoms.

Re: Significant breakthrough in search for Parkinson's biomarker

#122

Post by nkotov »

sph wrote: post #109
pyryt wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Can we have a line on the HN guidelines saying "telling people you asked about on ChatGPT doesn't make for interesting discussion. Please refrain from doing so." Especially in this case where you don't even tell what did you find out, only that you did ask ChatGPT. Good for you.

It's the new LMGTFY

Re: Significant breakthrough in search for Parkinson's biomarker

#123

Post by felixyz »

TexanFeller wrote: post #121
skottk wrote: post #113

Had to start researching this when a family member was recently diagnosed. Parkinson's has many forms and many causes. There's a big divide between Parkinson's _disease_ (idiopathic Parkinson's) and Parkinsonism from a variety of sources - stroke, drug-induced, and so on. There are also other conditions, like progressive supranuclear palsy, that are considered either to masquerade as Parkinsonism or to constitute ano…

> Parkinson's has many forms and many causes. A lot of my family were farmers. I've had close relatives die with severe Parkinsons, primarily those that farmed their whole life. Their theory was that it was really exposure to a lot of toxic farm chemicals. I can imagine Parkinsons turning out to be several different conditions with similar symptoms.

Certain pesticides are confirmed causes of Parkinsons. Don't remember which now, but could look it up.

Re: Significant breakthrough in search for Parkinson's biomarker

#124

Post by jpk2f2 »

giantg2 wrote: post #55
meindnoch wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A 2022 study found that infants who died of SIDS exhibited significantly lower specific activity of butyrylcholinesterase, an enzyme involved in the brain's arousal pathway, shortly after birth. This can serve as a biomarker to identify infants with a potential autonomic cholinergic dysfunction and elevated risk for SIDS." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIDS

Maybe this can stop the false prosecutions too. Or would they not be able to measure the enzymes in an autopsy?

May help, but it's still only one (potential) cause of SIDS.

SIDS encompasses a wide variety of risk factors. For example, heart pathologies are another common cause of SIDS. Additionally, stomach sleeping and inadvertent suffocation are other common risk factors.

Re: Significant breakthrough in search for Parkinson's biomarker

#125

Post by hanniabu »

lambdaba wrote: post #6

I just found out about Thiamine (vitamin B1) megadose therapy for Parkinson's: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3762356/ Another study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26505466/ > Conclusions: Administration of parenteral high-dose thiamine was effective in reversing PD motor and nonmotor symptoms. The clinical improvement was stable over time in all the patients. From our clinical evidence, we hypothesiz…

This further assures my thought that Parkinsons is caused by gut bacteria

Re: Significant breakthrough in search for Parkinson's biomarker

#126

Post by 1234letshaveatw »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #91
canadiantim wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's also the precise essence of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I'd much rather have the information in front of me so I can evaluate it and make my own determinations. If the parent commenter had their way I would've never seen this information. Now I can actually vet it out and do my own research. I think it's infinitely more dangerous to deprive people of information.

> much rather have the information in front of me so I can evaluate it and make my own determinations This is the danger. Most people, myself included, are not qualified to make that determination alone. In this case, as expected, it looks like it was crap [1][2]. I'm not arguing in any way for censoring anything. But there is legitimate danger when people, often desperate, compare legitimate medical research, which…

One notable exception to that is Kyrie Irving and other Covid vaccine skeptics, who were amazingly somehow able to "do their own research"

Re: Significant breakthrough in search for Parkinson's biomarker

#127

Post by canadiantim »

pfisherman wrote: post #93
canadiantim wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's also the precise essence of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I'd much rather have the information in front of me so I can evaluate it and make my own determinations. If the parent commenter had their way I would've never seen this information. Now I can actually vet it out and do my own research. I think it's infinitely more dangerous to deprive people of information.

Counterpoint. Historically people have not been able to evaluate these types of claims. See the history of snake oil salesmen and the origins of the Food Drug and Cosmetics Act. I don’t think it is a problem when people look at stuff, think it is interesting and try something relatively benign on themselves. For me the problem is when people start trying to play doctor without medical training or license.

I agree with you in regards to the dangers of snake oil and snake oil salesmen and the general inability for the vast majority of people to properly vet medical information.

That being said, I would say it’s unfortunately by necessity that people start trying to play doctor. I live in Canada, our healthcare system is currently in shambles such that it’s impossible to get timely care. Even the care we do get is time-limited and only focused on saving your life (which is great, but ignores the value of improving quality of life too). Also most of our medical interventions are so far behind the state of the art due to a Byzantine regulatory process that anyone actually trying to help a loved one with a health issue is forced to take matters into their own hands otherwise we fall through the cracks. The medical system is simply failing way too many people in Canada that it’s inevitable people Will take their health and the health of their loved ones into their own hands by necessity.

Re: Significant breakthrough in search for Parkinson's biomarker

#128

Post by pelorat »

canadiantim wrote: post #56
c_hagau wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Published in the "Journal of Integrative and Complementary Medicine", "The leading peer-reviewed journal providing scientific research for the evaluation and integration of complementary medicine into mainstream medical practice." "Integrative and Complementary Medicine" is a fancy way of saying quackery. Also, the video you linked to is on a channel run by a person describing himself as "a certified functional medic…

My pet peeve is people dismissing potentially very valuable scientific results because they’re afraid of quackery… Yes we should be cautious but no we should not dismiss. In fact I consider myself very fortunate for stumbling on this information as it may be very helpful for someone I love and I want to explore every possible way that can help.

Reminds me of this post I saw on CompSci Reddit once. A person claimed to have made an O(n) algorithm for finding loops in a graph (or something like that), and he posted the source code. The comments were all in the line "big if true, but I'm going to have to see a peer reviewed paper" to which he answered along the lines of: "I'm paid to write code, I'm not paid to write papers. I made this algorithm solve a problem at work, take it or leave it".

The thread died without anyone actually checking if his algorithm worked or not.

Who knows...

Re: Significant breakthrough in search for Parkinson's biomarker

#129

Post by Workaccount2 »

victor106 wrote: post #120
Workaccount2 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pick up a nicotine addiction. Seriously, it has long been understood that people who smoke have dramatically lower levels of parkinsons. It comes from the neuroprotective properties of nicotine. You don't have to become a smoker, you could theoretically use any of the other forms (vape, gum, patch)

https://www.apdaparkinson.org/article/smoking-and-parkinsons... Smoking and Nicotine addiction are still bad.

You don't have to smoke cigarettes to get nicotine. Using a patch just gives you nicotine in a very safe way, and nicotine itself isn't particularly harmful.

Re: Significant breakthrough in search for Parkinson's biomarker

#130

Post by meepmorp »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #103
meepmorp wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that the only part of everything they said you have any response for is the term they used to describe the medication, and then used it to dismiss anything else - that doesn't make you seem especially free of irrational thinking yourself.

Red herring fallacy, as a response to tone policing or dictionary or whatnot.

not an argument and fallacy fallacy
Post reply on HN