Copyright 2012 Medical News TodayLatest Health News and Medical News posted throughout the day, every day.http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/sections/parkinsons_disease/admin@medicalnewstoday.com (MNT Admin)editors@medicalnewstoday.com (MNT Editors)en-us Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/241359.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/241359.phpParkinson's disease researchers at the University at Buffalo have discovered how mutations in the parkin gene cause the disease, which afflicts at least 500,000 Americans and for which there is no cure. The results are published in the current issue of Nature Communications...Parkinson's Disease Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/241386.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/241386.phpAn Oregon Research Institute (ORI) exercise study conducted in four Oregon cities has shown significant benefits for patients with mild-to-moderate Parkinson's disease. In an original article published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), ORI scientist Fuzhong Li, Ph.D...Parkinson's Disease Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/241439.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/241439.phpMild-to-moderate Parkinson's disease patients who practice Tai Chi were found to experience significant benefits, including better posture, fewer falls, and improved walking ability, researchers from the Oregon Research Institute (ORI) reported in NEJM (New England Journal of Medicine)...Parkinson's Disease Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/241318.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/241318.phpTreatments for Parkinson's disease, estimated to affect 1 million Americans, have yet to prove effective in slowing the progression of the debilitating disease...Parkinson's Disease Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/241373.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/241373.phpBy reverse engineering human skin cells to become induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and then coaxing them to become neural dopamine cells, scientists in the US have developed a way to study a genetic cause of Parkinson's disease in lab-made neurons...Parkinson's Disease Mon, 06 Feb 2012 01:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/241197.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/241197.phpOne of the big mysteries in biology is why cells age. Now scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies report that they have discovered a weakness in a component of brain cells that may explain how the aging process occurs in the brain...Alzheimer's / Dementia Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/241015.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/241015.phpIn the US alone, at least 500,000 people suffer from Parkinson's disease, a neurological disorder that affects a person's ability to control his or her movement. New technology from the University of Bonn in Germany lets researchers observe the development of the brain cells responsible for the disease...Parkinson's Disease Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240914.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240914.phpMemories in our brains are maintained by connections between neurons called "synapses"...Neurology / Neuroscience Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240790.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240790.phpAt a time of increasing concern about low vitamin D levels in the world's population and increased use of blood tests for the vitamin, scientists are reporting development of a much-needed reference material to assure that measurements of vitamin D levels are accurate. The report appears in ACS' journal Analytical Chemistry...Nutrition / Diet Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240768.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240768.phpScientists at the Gladstone Institutes, an independent and nonprofit biomedical-research organization, have identified a protein that exacerbates symptoms of Parkinson's disease - a discovery that could one day lead to new treatments for people who suffer from this devastating neurodegenerative illness...Parkinson's Disease Wed, 25 Jan 2012 02:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240726.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240726.phpInduced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) are a promising avenue for cell replacement therapy in neurologic diseases. For example, mouse and human iPSCs have been used to generate dopaminergic (DA) neurons that improve symptoms in rat Parkinson's disease models...Parkinson's Disease Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/240704.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/240704.phpAlexithymia, a person's state of deficiency in understanding, processing, or describing emotions, has been strongly linked to depression in both clinical and general populations, and even though symptoms of alexithymia and depression can be partially overlapping, they are not all related to depressive symptoms and therefore highlight the relative independence of the two disorders...Parkinson's Disease Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240541.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240541.phpThe accumulation of α-synuclein, a small, negatively charged protein, in neural cells, is one of the hallmarks of Parkinson's disease. It has been suggested that oligomeric α-synuclein causes membranes to become permeable, or to form channels on the outer cell membrane...Parkinson's Disease Wed, 18 Jan 2012 03:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240426.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240426.phpResearch by a team in the University's Department of Biology found evidence that movement disorders, including tremor and slowness of movement (bradykinesia), associated with Parkinson's disease (PD) may be due to a defect in energy production in the nervous system. The advance may help to identify young adults who may be susceptible to the disease...Parkinson's Disease Wed, 18 Jan 2012 02:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240423.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240423.phpImagine if doctors could spot Parkinson's disease at its inception and treat the protein that triggers it before the disease can sicken the patient...Parkinson's Disease Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240388.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240388.phpA devastating neurodegenerative disease that first appears in toddlers just as they are beginning to walk has been traced to defects in mitochondria, the 'batteries' or energy-producing power plants of cells...Neurology / Neuroscience Mon, 16 Jan 2012 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240329.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240329.phpJust like people, some proteins have characteristic ways of "walking," which (also like human gaits) are not so easy to describe...Neurology / Neuroscience Fri, 13 Jan 2012 01:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240265.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240265.phpIron is a popular topic in health news. Doctors prescribe it for medical reasons, and it's available over the counter as a dietary supplement. And while it's known that too little iron can result in cognitive problems, it's also known that too much promotes neurodegenerative diseases...Neurology / Neuroscience Wed, 11 Jan 2012 01:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240133.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240133.phpIn the images of fruit flies, clusters of neurons are all lit up, forming a brightly glowing network of highways within the brain. It's exactly what University at Buffalo researcher Shermali Gunawardena was hoping to see: It meant that ORMOSIL, a novel class of nanoparticles, had successfully penetrated the insects' brains...Alzheimer's / Dementia Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240116.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240116.phpThe pathology of Parkinson's disease is characterized by a loss of dopamine-producing neurons in the pars compacta of the substantia nigra (SN), an area of the brain associated with motor control, along with the development of α-synuclein (αS) protein in the form of Lewy bodies (LB) in the neurons that survive...Parkinson's Disease Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240044.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240044.phpTwo related studies from Northwestern University offer new strategies for tackling the challenges of preventing and treating diseases of protein folding, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), cancer, cystic fibrosis and type 2 diabetes. To do its job properly within the cell, a protein first must fold itself into the proper shape...Alzheimer's / Dementia Wed, 04 Jan 2012 01:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/239857.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/239857.phpThe loss of manganese could mean that calcium does not stick to bones and could cause osteoporosis. This is the new theory put forward by researchers at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM) in Spain after studying deer antlers. The hypothesis published this month in the Frontiers of Bioscience journal still needs to be confirmed by the scientific community...Bones / Orthopedics Wed, 04 Jan 2012 01:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/239861.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/239861.phpBingo, a popular activity in nursing homes, senior centers and assisted-living facilities, has benefits that extend well beyond socializing. Researchers found high-contrast, large bingo cards boost thinking and playing skills for people with cognitive difficulties and visual perception problems produced by Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD)...Alzheimer's / Dementia Wed, 04 Jan 2012 01:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/239875.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/239875.phpBingo, a popular activity in nursing homes, senior centers and assisted-living facilities, has benefits that extend well beyond socializing. Researchers found high-contrast, large bingo cards boost thinking and playing skills for people with cognitive difficulties and visual perception problems produced by Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD)...Alzheimer's / Dementia Tue, 03 Jan 2012 09:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/239853.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/239853.phpA report in the January issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals, reveals that demographics and clinical factors seem to be linked to survival in patients with Parkinson disease (PD), and that the presence of dementia is linked to a substantial increase in mortality...Parkinson's Disease