What Is Parkinsons Disease? Underlying Causes Found for Brain Tissue Damage

The short answer to what is Parkinsons disease, is that Parkinsons disease is characterized by a dopamine deficiency in the brain.

This situation can be corrected, so that Parkinsons disease treatment typically includes the drug L-Dopa or Levodopa. (Brand names: Dopar, Larodopar, Sinemet) This drug corrects the shortage of dopamine in the brain, and for a while, the patient improves as a result of correcting this deficiency.

However, the question of what is Parkinsons disease has a wider discussion in the medical literature, and medical research in fact provides a broader answer to what is Parkinsons disease by pointing to the following underlying dynamics in the brain:

• First, that the biochemical analysis of the affected brain tissue shows damage consistent with extensive oxidative stress and the circulation of free radicals that follows it, and also

• That glutathione (GSH) levels in these tissues are particularly low. Whether the drop in GSH is a cause or a symptom of this damage remains unclear. However, this deficiency is currently not treated by medicine. (Glutathione in Parkinson’s disease: a link between oxidative stress and mitochondrial damage? Di Monte DA; Chan P; Sandy MS., California Parkinson’s Foundation)

• Addressing this wider perspective of Parkinsons disease treatment, researchers such as Dr. A. Hoffer and Dr. H. Foster suggest that there is a second step needed for long-term Parkinsons treatment.

Why? They observe that in spite of using the drug levodapa, the patient’s condition eventually worsens, and that they then become demented and often die.

Taking into account the research about underlying factors to what is Parkinsons disease, Drs. Hoffer and Foster recommend that:

• “In addition to levodopa, the patient should always be given high doses of antioxidants and the nutrients that are needed to help the body produce the antioxidant enzymes, such as glutathione peroxidase. In this way they would get the benefits of levodopa without its disadvantages. This should greatly extend the value of levodopa," they suggest. See: Unaddressed “Second Set” of Symptoms of Parkinsons Treatment Causes Deterioration

What Is Parkinsons Disease? Underlying Factors

Why? Over the past 15 years, medical research has shown that people with Parkinson's disease have low levels of this molecule -- especially in the tissues of the brain stem. Researchers are showing that what is Parkinsons disease also is -- that Parkinsons patients have especially low glutathione levels in the affected tissues.

• And the good news is that increasing glutathione levels can slow brain tissue damage, and significantly reverse symptoms.

Fortunately, there is another exciting about how to raise your body’s glutathione levels -- naturally and without pharmaceutical drugs – that is is a medical breakthrough you will definitely want to know about. (taking glutathione in pill form is not effective because it is digested, and taking NAC and pharmaceuticals on a daily basis has risks)

It had not been medically known how to safely raise the body’s levels of glutathione, until the recent discovery by Dr. G. Bounous at McGill University. He found that adding a specially prepared cysteine rich protein did enhance people's glutathione levels on a daily basis.

This discovery was formulated into a nutraceutical proven to raise levels of glutathione, and to cross the blood brain barrier.

What Is Parkinsons Disease and Oxidative Stress?

Antioxidants were linked to Parkinsons disease as early as 1991, when Dr. Stanly Fah of Columbia University found that the time when levodopa becomes necessary could be extended by 2.5 years in his test group receiving vitamins.

What Dr. Fah pointed out, was that what is Parkinsons disease, has to do with oxidative stress, and being able to combat this, was a major step forward toward understanding the disease.

Since that time, glutathione was identified as the body's own "Master Antioxidant" that plays a key role in protecting against oxidative stress. Scientists report that aging is often accompanied by a precipitous fall in glutathione levels, and that these lower levels were especially observed in PD.

Glutathione is part of the body’s defense system and protects us against the onset of many disease processes, especially an age-related disease like Parkinsons. We can now include a better Parkinson anti aging strategy.

The puzzle of dealing with what is Parkinsons disease is one step ahead with research about glutathione, GSH that can help to reverse symptoms, either temporarily or permanently.

Ask Us About Nutraceuticals for Parkinsons:

Links

• Get a FREE Booklet:: "Glutathione & Its Role In Parkinsons Disease"

• Serious Parkinsons Symptoms Caused by Parkinsons Medication Side Effects

• Parkinsons Disease: Better Neuro Protection Against Degeneration

• Protecting Against Neurological Diseases

• Living Well With Parkinsons by Glenna Wotton Atwood

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What Is Parkinson's Disease? Slowing Parkinsons Brain Tissue Damage