Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson’s Disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects predominately the dopamine-producing (“dopaminergic”) neurons in a specific area of the brain called substantia nigra. Symptoms generally develop slowly over years. The progression of symptoms is often a bit different from one person to another due to the diversity of the disease. People with PD may experience:

  • Tremor, mainly at rest and described as pill rolling tremor in hands; other forms of tremor are possible
  • Slowness and paucity of movement (called bradykinesia and hypokinesia)
  • Limb stiffness (rigidity)
  • Gait and balance problems (postural instability)

In addition to movement-related (“motor”) symptoms, Parkinson’s symptoms may be unrelated to movement (“non-motor”). People with PD are often more impacted by their non-motor symptoms than motor symptoms. Examples of non-    motor symptoms include: depression, anxiety, apathy, hallucinations, constipation, orthostatic hypotension, sleep disorders, loss of sense of smell, and a variety of cognitive impairments.

Parkinson's disease (PD) affects 1-2 per 1000 of the population at any time. PD prevalence is increasing with age and PD affects 1% of the population above 60 years although an estimated four percent of people with PD are diagnosed before age 50. Nearly one million people in the U.S. are living with Parkinson's disease (PD). This number is expected to rise to 1.2 million by 2030. Parkinson's is the second-most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer's disease. Approximately 60,000 Americans are diagnosed with PD each year. More than 10 million people worldwide are living with PD. Men are 1.5 times more likely to have Parkinson's disease than women.

Parkinson's disease is caused by a loss of nerve cells in the part of the brain called the substantia nigra. Nerve cells in this part of the brain are responsible for producing a chemical called dopamine. Dopamine acts as a messenger between the parts of the brain and nervous system that help control and co-ordinate body movements. If these nerve cells die or become damaged, the amount of dopamine in the brain is reduced. This means the part of the brain controlling movement cannot work as well as normal, causing movements to become slow and abnormal. The loss of nerve cells is a slow process. The symptoms of Parkinson's disease usually only start to develop when around 50% of the nerve cell activity in the substantia nigra have been lost. What causes the loss of nerve cells? It's not known why the loss of nerve cells associated with Parkinson's disease occurs, although research is ongoing to identify potential causes. Currently, it's believed a combination of genetic changes and environmental factors may be responsible for the condition.

Inositol

Animal and cell experiments showed that inositol hexaphosphate (IP6) was protective on neurons in parkinson's disease (PD) model, but the underlying mechanism of this action was not extensively elucidated. To address this question, we established 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) induced human dopaminergic cell line SH-SY5Y as PD cell model and testified the neuroprotection of inositol hexaphosphate. Collectively, inositol hexaphosphate exerted its neuroprotection on dopaminergic cells in PD cell model and the mechanism may be associated with changes of mitochondrion mediated apoptotic pathway and α-synuclein aggregation. Brain Res. 2016 Feb 15;1633:87-95. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2015.12.035. Epub 2015 Dec 29. Neuroprotective activity of inositol hexaphosphate. Alterations in antioxidant status in nervous tissue have been implicated in pathologies of neurodegenerative disorders such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease. Inositol hexaphosphate has been shown to possess neuroprotective activity against Parkinson’s disease MYO-INOSITOL HEXAPHOSPHATE- A PROMISING PHARMACEUTICAL AGENT: A REVIEW, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22159/ajpcr.2018.v11i11.27843 Xu Q, Kanthasamy AG, Reddy MB. Neuroprotective effect of thenatural iron chelator, phytic acid in a cell culture model of Parkinson’s disease. Toxicology 2008;245:101-8. Lv Y, Zhang Z, Hou L, Zhang L, Zhang J, Wang Y, et al. Phytic acid attenuates inflammatory responses and the levels of NF-κB and p-ERK in MPTP-induced Parkinson’s disease model of mice. Neurosci Lett 2015;597:132-6

** All data above are published as clinical trials and do not refer to EFSA claims. This means that they do not intend to be medical or therapeutical advice.