Category Archives: Systems and PD

The body systems and their interactions with PD and with one another.

Chronic inflammatory stress.

<The immune and endocrine systems interact through the HPA axis.> 1: Baillieres Best Pract Res Clin Endocrinol Metab. 1999 Dec;13(4):555-65. Chronic inflammatory stress. Harbuz MS. University Research Centre for Neuroendocrinology, University of Bristol, UK. A major mechanism involved in maintaining homeostasis in response to chronic inflammation is the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, resulting in the release [...]

And What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been

<Subsonics are inaudible, extremely low frequency, yet very powerful sound waves. In nature they almost always are linked to danger and thus trigger the fight or flight response. They are also quite rare. However, in the world of the Industrial Revolution they became steadily more common. Today, millions of us live with them. Only a [...]

Analogies and Understanding PD

PD is a complex creature and difficult to understand. One way to overcome this problem is by using analogies to make it comprehensible. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a good analogy is just as valuable. One major feature of YOPD is the struggle to maintain homeostasis, or balance, in the mind [...]

About PD

Tutorials and General Instruction – Arranged from Beginner to Advanced, more or less. The Human Brain From the Franklin Institute, this has to be one of the best on our subject and is particularly directed at the beginning student. It is also one of the best designed sites on the web. BBC The Human Body [...]

Cascade – Emotions and Endocrine Factors

(The following post references the chart called “The Parkinson’s Cascade” which can be viewed here.) This is one of a series of attempts to explain my view of Parkinson’s Disease in hopes of stimulating research into new areas. I freely admit to errors in this work and hope that those will be brought to my [...]

Tying it all together – stress, trauma, PD

A report in this morning’s Science Daily News started a cascade of  its own as several pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. With the charming title of “Seeing Family for the Holidays? Scientists Discover How the Stress Might Kill You” It goes on to state “”…. researchers from the University of Connecticut Health Center [...]

Neuroinflammation and the Flu Shot

In light of the work showing a link between the flu and PD, everyone should run out and get a flu shot, right? Wrong! And maybe a very big wrong at that. As outlined elsewhere on this site, the microglia are part of the innate, hardwired defense of your brain. They hold the line while [...]

PD and Alzheimer’s: A Critical Difference

Today’s Science Daily has an article entitled: Scientists Remove Amyloid Plaques From Brains Of Live Animals With Alzheimer’s Disease Das et al at the Mayo Clinic in Florida have found that in a mouse, the stimulation of microglia leads them to destroy the plaques formed by Alzheimer’s Disease. This is in contract to PD where [...]

YOPD: Young onset is a bit different – Part 1

A Problem With Specialization Medicine has embraced the concept of “specialization” – the aquisition of knowledge that is deep but narrow. There are some obvious strengths  to this approach, it is true. However, there are some major weaknesses that are not so obvious. One of the problems with this approach is that the divisional lines  [...]

Neuroinflammation: The Key- Part 5

Today’s London “Telegraph” reported on a study in the current issue of the journal “Neurology” that pretty much seals the case for neuroinflammation as causal in both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases. Beginning with a group of 222 AD patients with an average age of 83, they obtained baseline data via blood work and cognitive testing. [...]