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Significant breakthrough in search for Parkinson's biomarker

michaeljfox.org

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Re: Significant breakthrough in search for Parkinson's biomarker

#191

Post by dang »

aintgonnatakeit wrote: post #34

The first study has 3 patients. The second study is a little better, but not by much. Both have the same first author. If this were legitimate, some academic medical center in the US would have picked it up. Parkinson’s is a huge target, and this kind of thing makes a career. This is likely on the same level as horse dewormer for COVID.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35770871 and marked it off topic. Please don't take HN thread on generic flamewar tangents. This is in the site guidelines:

"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Significant breakthrough in search for Parkinson's biomarker

#192

Post by dredmorbius »

sph wrote: post #174
m463 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much of this gets "downstream" to people eating the food produced. EDIT: https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary.php The 2023 DIRTY DOZEN Of the 46 items included in our analysis, these 12 fruits and vegetables were most contaminated with pesticides: Strawberries Spinach Kale, collard and mustard greens Peaches Pears Nectarines Apples Grapes Bell and hot peppers Cherries Blueberries Green beans

The carnivore doesn't sound so idiotic viewed under that lens. The thing about mammals is that they have liver and kidneys, which are remarkably good at filtering toxins. Certainly much better than a plant. I wonder if the reason many feel better eating only meat is that they avoid pesticides that wreck havoc on their body. I know I do feel like a million bucks after just 10 days, even though it's extremely boring.

On the flip side is bioaccumulation, in which contaminants and toxins are concentrated in organic material, particularly animals, and most especially for predators-of-predators.

The reasons for high mercury levels in tuna, shark, and swordfish is that each of these is both a predator and often eats other predatory species. There are numerous other examples of both species and contaminants, including even natural and even vital substances, e.g., vitamin A toxicity in carnivorous livers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioaccumulation>

Re: Significant breakthrough in search for Parkinson's biomarker

#193

Post by Teever »

georgeg23 wrote: post #189
athoun wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't seem sensationalist to me. I looked up three different strip malls that I am familiar with and all of them have some kind of PCE cleanup sites from previous or current dry-cleaners. Here's one example in Santa Clara of a dry cleaner that operated in the 60's and there has been an active remediation project to cleanup the groundwater that has been on-going to this day [1]. In this case a single dry-cleaner…

The Twitter thread says a single shot glass of the stuff will contaminate a site "forever". That's not even true for weapons grade plutonium.

I don't follow. What does plutonium have to do with this chemical?

Re: Significant breakthrough in search for Parkinson's biomarker

#194

Post by sph »

dredmorbius wrote: post #192
sph wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The carnivore doesn't sound so idiotic viewed under that lens. The thing about mammals is that they have liver and kidneys, which are remarkably good at filtering toxins. Certainly much better than a plant. I wonder if the reason many feel better eating only meat is that they avoid pesticides that wreck havoc on their body. I know I do feel like a million bucks after just 10 days, even though it's extremely boring.

On the flip side is bioaccumulation, in which contaminants and toxins are concentrated in organic material, particularly animals, and most especially for predators-of-predators. The reasons for high mercury levels in tuna, shark, and swordfish is that each of these is both a predator and often eats other predatory species. There are numerous other examples of both species and contaminants, including even natural and…

That's a good point, though we (humans) tend to eat only herbivores and not many carnivores/predators, probably because of that reason. I can't think of any actually, apart from fish.

Re: Significant breakthrough in search for Parkinson's biomarker

#195

Post by dredmorbius »

sph wrote: post #194
dredmorbius wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side is bioaccumulation, in which contaminants and toxins are concentrated in organic material, particularly animals, and most especially for predators-of-predators. The reasons for high mercury levels in tuna, shark, and swordfish is that each of these is both a predator and often eats other predatory species. There are numerous other examples of both species and contaminants, including even natural and…

That's a good point, though we (humans) tend to eat only herbivores and not many carnivores/predators, probably because of that reason. I can't think of any actually, apart from fish.

The reason has far more to do with metabolic efficiency of conversion of biomass into food than with bioaccumulation --- you'll see roughly a 10-fold drop in food production at each trophic level. There are exceptions amongst hunter and trapper cultures, though even there herbivores are generally more abundant than carnivores, and are less treacherous to hunt. You will find ominvores occasionally included in diets: bear, racoon, and members of the rodent family on occasion.

Fish (amongst other sea life) are an exception specifically because humans aren't concerned with that efficiency, and carnivorous fish tend to grow larger which poses efficiency benefits when line- or net-fishing.

Another class is birds, notably fish-eating species, which may be 2nd- or 3rd-order carnivores (carnivores of carnivores, or carnivores of carnivore-eating carnivores).

Re: Significant breakthrough in search for Parkinson's biomarker

#196

Post by chris-orgmenta »

oefnak wrote: post #30
cycomanic wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.michaeljfox.org/news/thiamine-vitamin-b1-and-par... The Michael J Fox foundation is more muted and says evidence is still missing. There have only been 2 trials and both were missing a placebo control group.

Imagine having Parkinsons and being in the placebo control group.

If a treatment in a placebo controlled study shows a vast improvement over placebo, the studies are sometimes finished early and are considered 'unethical to continue'.

e.g. HAART for HIV/AIDS.

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