Word: parkinsonism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...PARKINSON'S BREAKTHROUGH For the first time, researchers have identified a gene abnormality that causes some cases of Parkinson's disease--a finding that raises real hope for new treatments...
...books are to be believed--many people who try these treatments do get better. A mainstream gynecologist may not be able to explain why raspberry and nettles could help cure endometriosis, and a traditional neurologist may be stumped at how breathing exercises could dramatically relieve the symptoms of Parkinson's disease. But the fact remains that in a number of cases these treatments appear to work. For many in mainstream medicine, of course, such a cause-and-effect disconnect sounds like nothing more than an elaborate placebo effect, a sort of self-fulfilling medical prophecy, in which the mere...
Dopamine, like most biologically important molecules, must be kept within strict bounds. Too little dopamine in certain areas of the brain triggers the tremors and paralysis of Parkinson's disease. Too much causes the hallucinations and bizarre thoughts of schizophrenia. A breakthrough in addiction research came in 1975, when psychologists Roy Wise and Robert Yokel at Concordia University in Montreal reported on the remarkable behavior of some drug-addicted rats. One day the animals were placidly dispensing cocaine and amphetamines to themselves by pressing a lever attached to their cages. The next they were angrily banging at the lever like...
...treatment become. For instance, the discovery by Fowler and her team that a chemical that inhibits the mopping-up enzyme MAO B may play a role in cigarette addiction has already opened new possibilities for therapy. A number of well-tolerated MAO B-inhibitor drugs developed to treat Parkinson's disease could find a place in the antismoking arsenal. Equally promising, a Yale University team led by Eric Nestler and David Self has found that another type of compound--one that targets the dopamine receptor known as D1--seems to alleviate, at least in rats, the intense craving that accompanies...
...scientists have begun to do just that. A report published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine shows for the first time that the mental deterioration of Alzheimer's can be slowed significantly by two common drugs: vitamin E and selegiline, a compound used to treat Parkinson's disease. The two-year study conducted by the National Institute on Aging showed that normal doses of selegiline or high doses of vitamin E, both of which are antioxidants, slowed the rate of disability among patients with moderately severe Alzheimer's by an average of seven months. Neither drug reversed...