Asthma remedies are to help against Parkinson's

Experts report on the latest developments in Parkinson's research
Parkinson's research has recently made considerable progress, and for the first time there are realistic hopes that it will nip the development of the disease in the bud. Experts at the annual congress of the German Society for Neurology in Leipzig report on new possibilities for early detection and therapy.

Only in early September, published in the journal "Science" international study with German participation showed that the development of Parkinson may possibly be stopped with an asthma drug, the German Society of Neurology (DGN) reported in a press release on the contents of their annual congress. Another milestone was the development of a skin test for early diagnosis of the disease. "Parkinson's research is currently gaining rapid insights," emphasizes Professor Jens Volkmann of the Neurological University Hospital Würzburg in the DGN communication.

The understanding of Parkinson's disease has improved enormously and various new approaches to therapy have been derived. This could include the treatment with asthma drugs, which achieved quite convincing results in initial attempts. (Image: Sergey Nivens / fotolia.com)

Alpha-synuclein crucial
Parkinson's expert Professor Volkmann presented cutting-edge current research at the DGN annual congress, opening up new possibilities for diagnosis and therapy. It is becoming increasingly clearer as to how genetic and environmental factors drive alpha-synucleinopathy and thus neurodegeneration, which forms the basis of Parkinson's disease. These findings also open up new possibilities for diagnostics and strategies for causal therapies, said Prof. Volkmann.

Search for new drugs for Parkinson's
For example, it was surprising and groundbreaking to discover that common asthma drugs in the form of beta2-adrenoceptor agonists reduce the risk of Parkinson's disease. The authors of the study had analyzed 1,126 substances with possible modifying effects on the transcription of the alpha-synuclein gene, including common drugs, in a newly developed cell model, reports the DGN. For the first described monogenic Parkinson's variant (PARK1) is based on "a triplication of the alpha-synuclein gene with appropriate overexpression of the protein."

Asthma drugs have a positive effect, beta-blockers negative
In their research, the researchers noted that beta2-receptor agonists significantly lower transcription while beta-blockers significantly increase their levels, according to the DGN. In the follow-up experiments on wild-type mice, it had become clear that treatment with a beta2-agonist significantly reduced alpha-synuclein expression in the substantia nigra, suggesting a functional relevance for Parkinson's disease.

Effect of asthma drug in the population detectable
The continued evaluation of a population register with data from four million Norwegians and an observation period of eleven years showed that "the intake of salbutamol reduces the risk of developing Parkinson's disease by a factor of 0.66, while taking propranolol it increases significantly, "reports the DGN. Accordingly, the effect of the asthma drug is also empirically detectable in the population.

"The work is significant because it introduces a modification of alpha-synuclein transcription as a novel disease-modifying pharmacological therapy approach that would theoretically be possible with common and well-tolerated asthma drugs," Prof. Volkmann reports at the annual DGN Congress. Such a therapy could intervene earlier in the pathogenesis than treatments available today.

The latest developments in Parkinson's diagnostics and treatment will be presented at the annual congress of the DGN in Leipzig. (Image: rob3000 / fotolia.com)

Intestinal flora involved in the development of Alzheimer's
Other relatively new findings from Parkinson's research indicate that the gastrointestinal tract plays a special role in the onset of the disease. Most recently, the research of the Dresdner working group around Dr. med. Francisco Pan-Montojo on the rotenone model of the mouse "suggested that pathological alpha-synuclein deposits could form in autonomic nerve fibers of the gut wall and spread via retrograde transport into the dorsal vagus nucleus and from there corresponding to Braac's stages into other brain regions," reports the DGN. A vagotomy (severing of individual branches of the vagus nerve) significantly delayed the spread of the alpha-synuclein deposits. Also, a recent Swedish registry study has shown that there is a significantly lower risk of disease "if a truncated vagotomy was performed at least five years before symptom onset," according to the DGN.

Disease symptoms decreased overall
The importance of the gastrointestinal tract in Parkinson's was also confirmed by another study by American researchers, according to the expert. This has shown that the intestinal flora plays an important role in neurodegeneration in Parkinson's disease. In the mouse model of animals overexpressing alpha-synuclein, sterilization of the gut by antibiotic administration resulted in reduced alpha-synuclein deposits in the brain. There was also a lower level of "neuroinflammation due to reduced microglial activation" and the symptoms of the disease declined overall. Transmission of intestinal bacteria from Parkinson's patients to the sterile mouse model exacerbated the disease symptoms.

Early detection by means of skin test
According to Prof. Volkmann, the breakthrough in Parkinson's disease detection could possibly be a skin test, the German neuroscientist around Dr. med. Kathrin Doppler and Professor Claudia Sommer from Würzburg and Professor Wolfgang Oertel from Marburg. In risk patients with the so-called REM sleep behavior disorder, they were able to identify the biomarker alpha-synuclein in the skin and thus detect Parkinson's, years before the disease breaks out visibly, reports the DGN. Given the ease of access to skin biopsies and the high specificity of the study, the method has the potential to "identify parkinsonian patients in the prodromal stage of the disease and to gain clinical trials for disease modifying drugs." Parkinson's disease could be detected early on therapy with the newest methods. (Fp)