Parkinson's Research

"We haven't fixed anything for many years for Parkinson's, so you have to be totally open to accepting that you are wrong with whatever ideas you push."
"If the theory is correct, it would mean Parkinson's could be triggered by an infection decades before motor symptoms actually develop."
"This [infection theory] would allow us to predict who may develop Parkinson's in later years. It would also provide hope for new treatments for this still incurable disease."
"[Progress will be made] because people are more willing to look at alternative hypotheses and test them."
"All you have to do is crack the door open and show something can be done that people thought couldn't be done."
Dr. Michael Schlossmacher, neurologist, senior researcher, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute

OttawaMedicine.ca

Dr. Schlossmacher, a professor of cellular and molecular medicine at the University of Ottawa, has fashioned his medical career as a pioneering researcher by viewing problems waiting to be solved through not relying on hypotheses and theories that have proven disappointing, but rather by making a concerted effort to approach seemingly intractable problems from an angle no one else has thought to take. His focus is angled toward improved treatment, or better yet, a cure for Parkinson's disease.

Because his experience led him to reject widely accepted beliefs as medical orthodoxy, he paved a way to thinking beyond them and pioneered another theory altogether, that Parkinson's disease could have its trigger through an infection that occurred decades earlier, only resulting in symptoms related to Parkinson's many years on. Some 110,000 Canadians are affected by Parkinson's, and his goal is to find the path toward a better treatment regimen, and ultimately discover a cure.

There is, at present, no cure on the near horizon for this chronic, progressive movement disorder. As for treatment to try to improve the quality of life for those diagnosed with Parkinson's, it has remained inflexibly constant. Dr. Schlossmacher compares the progress in understanding Parkinson's to the situation of Alzheimer's disease, which he explains is at least a decade further ahead than what pertains with Parkinson's.

The research currently underway that links Parkinson's to earlier-in-life exposure to infections is nowhere near as advanced as the understanding in Alzheimer's that it is caused by plaques and tangles in the brain, enabling researchers to focus on the development of effective treatments, based on this predominant theory generally accepted in medical research circles. But Dr. Schlossmacher and a colleague, Dr. Julianna Tomlinson are moving research forward.

Loss of the sense of smell, along with chronic constipation are held to be associated as symptoms of Parkinson's, linking to the infection theory which holds that some infections in the gut and the nose may be the cause of the immune system malfunctioning, where inflammation in the brain and allied damage of critical nerve cells results in Parkinson's disease.

Dr. Schlossmacher cites the researcher from Perth Australia, who went on to be awarded the Nobel prize in medicine for proving that peptic ulcers is caused by bacteria, and thus curable with antibiotics. Nobel laureate Barry Marshall was so convinced of his theory he ingested a petri dish of H.pylori, causing the growth of an ulcer, which he then cured with antibiotics, convincing skeptics that his theory was in the event, fact.

Ten Symptoms:

1. Tremors
2. Small handwriting
3. Loss of Smell
4. Trouble sleeping
5. Trouble moving or walking
6. Constipation
7. Soft or low voice
8. Face masking (troubled appearance)
9. Dizziness or fainting
10. Stooped or hunched over

Parkinson's Foundation