Protein that accumulates in Parkinson’s also adds to stomach, heart and skin

The protein neuronal alpha-synuclein, which accumulates in the brain in the disease of Parkinson’sis also added to the stomach, heart and skin, according to the results of the latest research on the disease presented at the World Parkinson’s Congress which concludes tomorrow in Barcelona (Spain).

Pharmacist Marina Romero (Palma del Río, Córdoba, 1970), director of the organizing scientific committee of the World Parkinson’s Congress and researcher at the Aarhus University School of Medicine (Denmark), explained to EFE that her research group is trying to reveal the role of the immune system in Parkinson’s.

“We are trying to understand how the immune cells in the brain and in the blood change during the disease and how this affects the neurons, if it damages or protects them, to work on diagnosing, monitoring and treating the patient.”, according to Romero, who has also researched at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) in the United States and at Lund University in Sweden.

The researcher told Efe that they have discovered that the immune system and immune cells in the blood change during the disease and that neurons in the skin and stomach are also affected in Parkinson’s, a disease first described in 1817.

According to Romero, it is increasingly clear that the disease is “more general, more systemic”, and that it affects more areas of the body and not only the brain, which “It makes the life of the patient much more complicated”, which must deal with symptoms not normally associated with Parkinson’s, such as pain or sleep or digestive disorders, among others, beyond tremor, stiffness or slow movement.

“Parkinson’s affects the entire nervous system, which controls the entirety of our body”according to the researcher, who explained that advances in Parkinson’s research now make it possible to identify new biomarkers that contribute to achieving an earlier diagnosis of the disease and developing new therapies.

Knowing that Parkinson’s affects other areas of the body and not just the brain will allow “develop new drugs” because it supposes new “targets on which to work to slow down the disease and prevent neuronal death”something that therapies for the disease cannot yet do, which do alleviate the symptoms.

According to Romero, Parkinson’s is detected earlier each time, between the ages of 50 and 70, unlike a few years ago, “when the patient arrived at a very advanced stage of the disease”.

Early diagnosis is important because it allows detecting the changes that occur first and makes it easier for researchers to know what happens first when you start to develop Parkinson’s, the cause of which is unknown.

“We know that there is a protein that begins to accumulate, alpha-synuclein, and this leads to the death of neurons. The fact that we have found that this protein is also added in the neurons of the skin, stomach and heart, as well as in those of the brain, allows us to go further, to investigate what is the first thing that is detected when Parkinson’s disease begins to develop. ”according to the researcher.

Romero announced that researchers are now working on “a hypothesis that says that the first area affected is the stomach, either due to exposure to contaminants or infections, which go from there to the brain”.

The disease has a genetic component, but also an environmental factor, and exposure to pollutants, particularly pesticides, increases the chances of developing it.

“In fact, farmers make up a professional group that is more at risk than others of suffering from the disease because they are close to areas where there are pesticides and other contaminants”Romero warned.

The researcher assured that new technologies make it possible to study the cells in great detail and that there are many experimental therapies in the initial phase, which have not yet reached the patient, to reduce alpha-synuclein or improve the immune system, based on the research of laboratories at the anatomical, pathological or clinical level, among many others.

Romero had an impact on making people aware of chronic diseases that affect millions of people, such as Parkinson’s: “In Congress, a patient explained to me that, upon arriving at his hotel, he was not able to start moving to get out of the taxi and the driver got angry with him because he did not get out. It is important to raise awareness about Parkinson’s”he concluded.

Source: EFE