I have not been on the forum for long and apparently some people have been upset about what I have said. Well don't hold your breath because I won't stop telling it as it is until someone listens. 'Just who exactly does the PDS care about'. If it was us wouldn't they listen to our views, wouldn't they invest even a fraction of the sum mentioned in the magazine Progress, into some research along the lines of chewexpert. Do you know that the current round of research will be investing 1.8 million in items like this extract from the magazine.
"Nicotine-related substances – a potential treatment for Parkinson’s?
Lead researcher: Dr Stephanie Cragg,
University of Oxford
Cost: £177,041 over 36 months
Despite having been introduced almost 40 years ago, levodopa is still the most common treatment forParkinson’s. Although initially very effective, levodopa loses benefit with time and is troubled by side effects.
Scientists are therefore keen to develop other treatments with fewer side effects.We have found that nicotine has crucial effects on the working of dopamine in the normal healthy brain, and nerve cells that make dopamine can react to nicotine.Our research team is interested in a group of chemicals called nicotine-related substances. We think that these substances may have two possible benefits for nerve cells.
They might:
• boost the amount of dopamine being produced to help relieve the symptoms
• protect the nerve cells from further damage – that is,to stop the progression of Parkinson’s
Our group plans to test whether nicotine-related substances can act on nerve cells and boost dopamine production. We will see if this has any effect in mice with Parkinson’s-like symptoms. Our studies aim to provide a better understanding of how and why this happens. We hope that the knowledge and outcomes from this research will inform the design and development of drugs that mimic the effects of nicotine with minimal side effects."
Lots of if's but's and maybe's but is there anything really positive in that thesis. Well that takes care of the next three years. i hope they don't come back in fourty years and ask fore some more money.
Now being a layman i suspect my opnion will count for nothing and i challenge any of the Research Advisory Panel to come to this forum and give me a logical answer why they are still going down the same road they started 40 years ago, still with no conclusive results. As well as funding research on a link between Ecstacy and PD and yet give no funding at all to an area which has had positive results - WITH NO SIDE EFFECTS - Is it perhaps anything to do with the balance of the profiles on the panel. The vast majority of the RAP are specialists in Neurology and related fields. There is not one person who specifically represents Alternative - not complimentary - Therapies.
The PDS is not a medical authority so why should they pass judgement on something they (the society) are not prepared to investigate. Isn't it there duty to explore all avenues irrespective of thier beliefs. Or do they care more about how much money they can collect from people. Have they lost sight of thier objective. I think the Research Advisory Panel has an imbalance in it's profile so how can we ever expect any genuine steps forward.
Digging Past The Truffle
To gastronomes a truffle is a desirable delicacy of great price. It is a knobbly ball-like fungus found at a modest depth in the soil beneath oak and beech trees. To get to it you have first to know it is there and then start carefully digging. If you did not know where to look you could clearly dig down and further down and not find it. This is avoided by using a sensitive nose – dog or pig – to indicate a likely spot to start.
For people with PD the 'truffle' is the cure that we so desperately wish for – the luxury item so hard to find - the item almost without price.
Many of the symptoms of PD should have provided the clues as to where to look just as the trufflehounds do. Constipation, difficulty in swallowing and bowel inflammation come to mind. The tremors that result from fever are another clue. A fixation with PD only being a brain problem has diverted attention away from the target for too many years. Research has gone too deep in too many random places seeking the one commercial opportunity to make a fortune and perhaps cure PD. In the process we have 'dug past the truffle' and money is being wasted on narrowly focussed depths when a widespread search of the literature from other disciplines shows some of the answers waiting for us.
Studies leading to the Parkinsons Improvement Programme have been widely based and draw on work worldwide in the food industry, in other neuropathies, in gastroenterology and in disciplines as far apart as cancer and mathematically modelled molecular biochemistry.
As with any search of the literature the results depend heavily on the breadth of the search terms entered and a broadminded approach to the impact factors of the journals involved. Journal snobbery and narrow specialisation have no place in this truffle hunt. The most innovative thinking is often the least likely to gain acceptance and publication in a 'high impact' journal.
To gastronomes a truffle is a desirable delicacy of great price. It is a knobbly ball-like fungus found at a modest depth in the soil beneath oak and beech trees. To get to it you have first to know it is there and then start carefully digging. If you did not know where to look you could clearly dig down and further down and not find it. This is avoided by using a sensitive nose – dog or pig – to indicate a likely spot to start.
For people with PD the 'truffle' is the cure that we so desperately wish for – the luxury item so hard to find - the item almost without price.
Many of the symptoms of PD should have provided the clues as to where to look just as the trufflehounds do. Constipation, difficulty in swallowing and bowel inflammation come to mind. The tremors that result from fever are another clue. A fixation with PD only being a brain problem has diverted attention away from the target for too many years. Research has gone too deep in too many random places seeking the one commercial opportunity to make a fortune and perhaps cure PD. In the process we have 'dug past the truffle' and money is being wasted on narrowly focussed depths when a widespread search of the literature from other disciplines shows some of the answers waiting for us.
Studies leading to the Parkinsons Improvement Programme have been widely based and draw on work worldwide in the food industry, in other neuropathies, in gastroenterology and in disciplines as far apart as cancer and mathematically modelled molecular biochemistry.
As with any search of the literature the results depend heavily on the breadth of the search terms entered and a broadminded approach to the impact factors of the journals involved. Journal snobbery and narrow specialisation have no place in this truffle hunt. The most innovative thinking is often the least likely to gain acceptance and publication in a 'high impact' journal.