From smelling out Parkinson’s to clinical testing, now really is an exciting time for Parkinson’s research. NR Times speaks to Dr Simon Stott, director of research at Cure Parkinson’s, and 4D Life founder Nick Berners-Price, to find out what’s over the horizon.
“There’s a lady in Scotland called Joy Milne who pointed out you can actually smell Parkinson’s,” says Dr Stott, highlighting his excitement over patient guided insights.
“She’s able to identify people with Parkinson’s to a very highly accurate level.”
Milne has been working with scientists to help identify molecules linked to Parkinson’s.
This was done by having her identify t-shirts of those who have Parkinson’s that were mixed with those who do not have the disease.
Milne was able to correctly pick out the t shirts of those who had Parkinson’s.
She also identified a t shirt of a man who was not known at the time to have Parkinson’s, eight months later that same man was diagnosed with Parkinson’s.
These tests have helped scientists discover molecules linked to Parkinson’s.
Stott also points out the new developments made with deep brain stimulation. He says: “We’ve had deep brain stimulation for a long time, that’s always been a programmed set of stimulation, and now we have the technology for it to be adaptive.
“The electrodes that are providing the stimulation are also detecting the brain activity around them and they’re able to adapt the stimulation according to the needs of the brain.
“Those clinical trials are ongoing at the moment.
“In 1997 we had our first risk factor for Parkinson’s genetic risk factor.
“In the first decade of this century the researchers were looking at the underlying biology of that risk factor and other risk factors.
“They were looking at the biology and then for this second decade of the century, they were developing tools and therapies based around that biology. Now we’re at the point of where we’re actually clinically testing those therapies.
“We’ll know in the next couple of years, with our theories about biology is correct. And hopefully, that’ll lead to therapies that can actually slow the progression of the condition.”
Berners-Price’s, 4D life is a programme that focuses on movement, nutrition, function and lifestyle, on Parkinson’s research, he says: “What I find most interesting is the information that’s coming out about the possibility of stopping progression of the condition through exercise.
“We know that we can slow the production of Parkinson’s through exercise, but there is research going on around how long does that slowing down go on for and how much can it be slowed by.
“How long before we might be able to stop the progression of Parkinson’s through exercise?”
Government funding
Both Stott and Berners-price believe that there isn’t enough government funding for Parkinson’s research, as they both highlight that presently Parkinson’s is the fastest growing neurological condition.
Dr Stott says: “Parkinson’s is the fastest growing neurological condition at present and we’re not sure why.
“So no, I don’t I don’t think it’s been funded well enough.
Given that the conditions associated with age, and we have an ageing population, the demographics are against us, and you can see on the horizon, that there’s going to be a crisis coming, not just in Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, as well, neurodegeneration in general.”
Adding to his reasons of the government not doing enough, Berners-Price says: “It is a priority to find treatments, therapies and pharmaceuticals to help stop that progression of the disease because it’s going to be a huge cost for the NHS and the care system.
“We’ve got to come up with better solutions and we’ve got to start to figure out why this is the fastest growing neurological condition.
“We haven’t had a new pharmaceutical therapy for Parkinson’s significantly for over 50 years, and that’s still around and it’s basically all we treat Parkinson’s with.”
Future of Parkinson’s research
Focusing on his 4D life programme, Berners-Price hopes the future of Parkinson’s research will bring answers to how movement and nutrition can help to stop Parkinson’s, he says: “I think it could provide much more certainty around the best ways to manage the condition through the right movements of the right nutrition particularly.
“We need more information, because we know there are benefits, but we don’t know for certain what the right things to do are.
“If people were much more confident about what the right thing to do is, they would be more likely to do it.”
Dr Stott hopes that they will have some answers to fundamental questions regarding the biology of Parkinson’s.
He says: “We’ve got phase three clinical trials at the moment for disease modifying therapies. So in the next four to five years, those trials will be completing and we will know if they have been effective.
“If they have been effective then all of a sudden we’re talking about different types of treatments for people with Parkinson’s.
“Everything to date has been symptomatic, this covers up the symptoms, but it doesn’t necessarily cover the progression of the condition.
“If the set of clinical trials will give us positive results, I’m not trying to raise expectations here, but if they do, it’ll be quite game changing.”
Dr Stott also believes that we will see changes regarding clinical testing: “I think going forward that there’ll be changes in the way the clinical testing people in clinical trials.
“There’s a large focus at the moment on biomarkers and wearables and all sorts of other technologies involved in the assessment of Parkinson’s.
“That’ll have important implications not just for clinical trials, but also for the general care that we provide the community.”
The future is certainly bright, believes Dr Stott, who says we are in the “golden age of research”. He says: “If you look at the research papers that have been written about Parkinson’s, over 80 per cent of them had been done in the last 20 years.
“It’s a really exciting time for young researchers coming into the field to be part of this, what is the golden age of research, and then fingers crossed, with all that effort, all the resources, something will now play out something that could be bringing therapeutic benefit to the community.”
