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Parkinson's Disease Warning as More Asians Join March of Time |
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Wednesday, 31 January 2007 |
Source: The Standard
By Jamie Talan
The number of people growing old and living longer have led to ominous projections for Parkinson's disease.
By 2030, the numbers will double in developing Asian nations and there might be 80 percent more Americans with the disease, according to a new study in the United States.
Ray Dorsey and colleagues at the University of Rochester say the prevalence will grow as populations shift in age. In 2005, an estimated 4.1 million people worldwide had Parkinson's disease. In 25 years, that number is predicted to climb to 8.7 million.
"This is a chronic condition that will be claiming more and more people," said Dorsey, co-author of the study published this month in the journal Neurology. The scientists say China and India have growth curves that are more like a triangle, with more young people than older ones. Over time, this will tip the scales as the young population ages and leave more people vulnerable to Parkinson's and other age-related diseases like Alzheimer's.
Parkinson's is primarily an age- related disease. Symptoms take hold when most of the dopamine-containing cells in a brain region called the substantia nigra die away. But while medicines that target the brain chemical dopamine offer relief in the early days of the disease, in time they stop working effectively. The treatments do not seem to help gait disturbances, freezing, falling and dementia that follow the path of this disease.
The answer, the researchers say, will come from more research and new treatments that protect against Parkinson's or slow its course. Parkinson's researchers now know it is not only dopamine-containing cells at play in the progressive illness. Parkinson's is characterized by other pathologies spread throughout the brain.
Work is under way to develop drug treatments - including gene therapy and stem-cell therapy - to stall the disease process. NEWSDAY
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