Word: parkinsons
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...first, Lawrence regarded the episode as a freak occurrence. The symptoms of Parkinson's are notoriously unpredictable, and it seemed like just another of the disease's erratic turns. But then he tried ecstasy again, and once more he was able for hours at a time to regain something close to the athletic grace he once possessed. Yet when he mentioned the experience to his doctors, they dismissed it as a result of the street drug's known amphetamine qualities. So Lawrence thought little more about it, other than to make the most of ecstasy's unexpected side effect...
...however, Lawrence's discovery is being hailed as the beginning of a medical breakthrough. After seeing footage from a forthcoming bbc television documentary, two leading Parkinson's researchers have begun full-time investigation into why ecstasy has such a dramatic effect on his condition. The documentary, to be aired this week, shows Lawrence in a gym doing forward rolls, somersaults, backflips and swallow dives despite his debilitating condition. The researchers, Professor Alan R. Crossman and Dr. Jonathan M. Brotchie of the University of Manchester, are trying to find a component of the banned substance that might be developed into...
...Parkinson's is an incurable disorder of the central nervous system usually associated with the elderly but now increasingly affecting younger people. Sufferers include Muhammad Ali, Billy Graham, Janet Reno and, according to some reports, the Pope. But research into Parkinson's remained underfunded and under-publicized until actor Michael J. Fox announced he had the disease in 1998, having developed it a decade...
...Parkinson's is caused by a breakdown of the brain's production of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which relays the electrical impulses involved in muscular movement. The last great breakthrough in treatment was in the late 1960s, when the "miracle" drug levadopa, or L-dopa-the chemical precursor of dopamine-was discovered to "unfreeze" patients who for decades had been practically rigid, unable even to produce facial expressions. Though it remains the standard treatment for Parkinson's, there is a serious downside to L-dopa. After a couple of years, during which patients seem to be cured, they start developing...
...healthy person, natural dopamine is released in tune with the body's needs, but using L-dopa is the equivalent of running a car's turbocharger in traffic. The result for Parkinson's patients is that their condition oscillates between hyperactivity while they are on L-dopa and immobility when they are not. Pharmacologists have been searching for 30 years for a drug to combine effectively with L-dopa and mute the turbocharger effect, but none has emerged...