June 13, 2025 • 23 mins
Dopamine is the messenger that connects your brain to your body—and in Parkinson's disease, this crucial connection slowly disappears. Dr. Floronal Joseph returns to unpack the devastating progression of this neurodegenerative condition affecting nearly 12 million people worldwide.
Most of us recognize the tremors, but Parkinson's brings a cascade of both physical and psychological challenges. When cells in the substantia nigra region of the brain degenerate and die, they can never repair or regenerate. The resulting dopamine shortage triggers not just the familiar shaking hands, but also bradykinesia (slowed movements), involuntary actions like excessive salivation, and the often-overlooked burden of depression and social isolation.
What makes Parkinson's particularly troubling is its wide reach. While prevalence increases with age, symptoms can appear as early as 12 years old. Men face approximately 1.5 times higher risk than women until age 85, creating unique challenges for male patients who may struggle more with visible symptoms that affect traditional notions of masculinity and independence. Dr. Joseph explains how this contrasts with Alzheimer's higher prevalence in women, offering fascinating insights into gender differences in neurological disease.
We also explore the surprising geographic patterns of Parkinson's, with higher rates in America's "Parkinson's belt" across Utah and Colorado, and industrial Midwest regions where environmental toxins create heightened risk. Even diet plays a significant role, with fiber intake affecting constipation—a common but frequently overlooked symptom.
With projections showing Parkinson's cases doubling to 25 million globally by 2050, understanding this complex condition has never been more urgent. Listen now to learn how medical science is working to identify causes and potential treatments for this devastating disease.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone, I'm Dr Beatrice Ippolit and this is
your World.
Hello everyone, Today, you know, we have the privilege to have
(00:21):
back on the show Dr FlorinalJoseph.
Dr Joseph, thank you for coming, and how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I'm good, Dr Ipoli.
Thank you for having me again.
Thank you for the invitationand you know, as I said, I'm a
resource to this show.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Okay, I like that, I like that, I like that.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Anyhow, I can be useful to you and to your
audience, I would try to makemyself available, and this is
exactly what happened today.
It seems like I can be usefulto your show today and I'm here
again.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Thanks for inviting me.
Okay, I really like that.
Last time you were with us, drJoseph, we spoke about
Alzheimer's disease, and todayso we're gonna talk about.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Parkinson's disease.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
It's like recovering the neurodegenerative diseases.
Actually, we spoke aboutAlzheimer's, we're talking now.
Today we'll be talking aboutParkinson's, so that's really
good, okay, like, like myaudience.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
You know I'm illiterate in that area, so what
was through it?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Look, you said illiterate.
I don't think you are.
You do know a lot about it, butwe're trying to bring it down
to the ground for your audience,for those who are listening to
us all the listeners.
We will be talking about it.
So, like we said in theprevious show, when we're
talking about Alzheimer'sdisease today, parkinson's
(01:49):
disease is one of those kind ofneurodegenerative diseases.
That means it's a disease thatis mainly characterized by those
cells, what we call the nervecells, the neuronal cells, those
cells in your brain.
They degenerate and when thosecells start to degenerate,
(02:12):
unfortunately when they getdamaged, they die.
There's no repair mechanismsfor them.
Unfortunately, those cells,when they degenerate again, they
can lead to some symptoms,including some movement symptoms
you may have.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
But does the brain have the capacity or the ability
to regenerate on itself?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Unfortunately, the nerve cells is not the same as
the normal.
The other cells we have,whether the som somatic cells,
the cells we have on our skin,the cells we have on our heart
or the sex cells this are thosecells that we have in our gonads
that have the ability toreproduce, either via mitosis or
(02:57):
meiosis, the cells in our brain.
It's not the same for them,unfortunately, when they don't
have the possibility toregenerate themselves, like
those cells I just talked about.
And, the worst thing as well,when it cells get damaged, there
is a process by which the cellcan repair itself.
(03:17):
There is a repair mechanismsthat can happen to the cells.
But the cells that we have inour brain, unfortunately, when,
when they get damaged, they die,they can't repair themselves.
And actually that's a very goodline of research.
Actually, I remember when I wasa PhD student, my lab is still
actually working on finding amechanism for the cells to
(03:39):
repair themselves.
We are in the process offinding something that can be
very helpful for those peoplewho are suffering with those
kind of neurodegenerativediseases, including Parkinson's
disease.
But the cells, they don'trepair themselves.
As a short answer,unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Ah, okay, so, but what are the current theories on
the cause of Parkinson'sdisease and how do genetic and
environmental factors contributeto the development of
Parkinson's disease?
And how do genetic andenvironmental factors contribute
to the development of thedisease?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
So you get it right.
You just said it here.
Unfortunately, the causes forParkinson's disease is quite
unknown.
We do not know the exact causefor Parkinson's disease.
But what we do know there aresome factors, as you mentioned
here genetic factors, that's onewe think, and the second one
it's environmental factors.
(04:30):
Those are the two factors thatwe think contribute to
Parkinson's disease.
Genetics, because you can havethose genes.
We have several genes that arelinked to Parkinson's disease
and those genes.
They can be mutated.
We can see how that mutationscan trigger to change in your
brain and in those cells andthat can trigger those symptoms
(04:52):
that we may be talking aboutlater on.
And those genes include, forinstance, the famous parkinson 9
, park 9 genes.
We have several other type park9, park 2, snc a, which is an
alpha-synuclein gene, and thealpha-synuclein genes.
It's very interesting in thesense that it's a small protein,
(05:12):
very small.
I'm so sorry for your audienceif I'm getting a little more
molecular.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
We need that because we want to fully understand
exactly what's going on withthat disease?
That is great.
So we have to fully understandthat's going on with that
disease.
That is great.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
So we have to fully understand that.
So what happens here?
There's a small protein that wecall alpha-synuclein.
It's very small because it'sabout 14 kilodalgons, so very,
very small protein that we found.
That this protein it has to dowith some other granules that
accumulate in our brain which wecall Lewy bodies.
(05:48):
Those Lewy bodies, theyaccumulate in a specific region
of your brain which we callsubstantia niagara.
When those Lewy bodiesaccumulate there, so they
prevent those neuronal cells tosecrete a very important
neurotransmitters that we calldopamine.
(06:09):
It prevents those cells tosecrete we call them
dopaminergic cells, neuronalcells.
They cannot secrete dopamine.
So dopamine, literally it's asmall protein.
It's a small protein, it's asmall molecule, I would say that
literally puts your brain incontact with the rest of your
(06:29):
body.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
That's the importance of the dopamine.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Dopamine is extremely important because it's
signaling molecules.
You know all the signals.
They come from your brain whenthose nerve cells they fire.
When they fire it's like thisfire you have behind us here.
So they are sending a message,but for that message to be
distributed throughout your body, the dopamine you need.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
The department is responsible for that it's a
neurotransmitters.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
It transmits this message.
So when you have those neuronalcells, those nerve cells, they
cannot secrete dopamine.
So now you have those moleculesthat I call earlier lower
bodies, that accumulate in thatsubstantia nigra and that cause
you will start having someproblem in within your whole
(07:17):
body that is linked to thisproblem that we have in our
brain.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
When you say Dr Joseph, some problems, so can
you mention at least one or two?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Of course that brings us to actually the symptoms we
can have.
They can link to some movementproblem.
Those are the motor symptoms,movement including, for instance
, slowness in your movement.
For instance, someone whosuffers from Parkinson's disease
.
You may be sitting down butwhen you're standing up you
(07:48):
can't.
You are slow to to to stand up.
The jargon to that is bodykinesia, somebody who suffers
bradykinesia.
That means they are slow in themovement.
Not only that, they have tremor, like you may want to take
something and it's involuntary.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
When you have tremor you want to grab something and
you start to shake.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yeah, your hands start shaking involuntarily and
it's asymmetrical thosemovements.
The tremor movement isasymmetrical.
What does that?
mean you start feeling it onlyin one side of your body.
This a means without it's notthe perfect symmetrical, where
you feel it in both ends.
However, as you're progressingin this disease, you will start
(08:32):
feeling in both hands the sameway.
You're taking something, youstart shaking here, you can feel
it as well with this hand also,you can feel it with this hand.
So it's asymmetrical at first,at the beginning, where you
start feeling that shaking,that's tremor, and you have the
slow movement as well.
And as you're progressing,these symptoms that we call
(08:54):
dystonia.
Dystonia does it's like youstart to pour saliva.
Right, it is involuntarymovement, like you may be
sitting and without knowing it,you're not doing anything and
saliva start to be pouring outof your mouth.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
That can have some social impact on you right when
you can prevent you from goingoutside exactly realizing with
others exactly you don't wantfor people to notice that you
those are dealing with thispower that is so true what you
say, and again you will see howthat will link to with to
(09:32):
depression and anxiety you havein
Speaker 2 (09:34):
that show the mental health side of your show.
In general, it's mainly focusedon mental health and you can
see how Parkinson's disease canlead to that, because what I
just said and you just said ittoo when you start having the
social problem, that can lead towhat we call the non-motor
symptoms.
(09:54):
The non-motor symptoms.
Those are symptoms that theyare not really related to
movement, but the consequencescan clearly link to mental
health, like depression, as yousaid, anxiety and people will
start to isolate themselves moreexactly that can even lead to
(10:14):
suicide.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Yeah, a lot of very serious, oh wow those are the
kind of businesses.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
You don't hear a lot of people talking much about
them because in united states,fine sense we have approximately
less than a million peoplediagnosed with Parkinson's.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
What is the age of onset?
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Look, we can classify them as we did for Alzheimer's
disease.
We can classify Parkinson'sdisease into different stages
the early stage, the beginningstage and the late stage.
The early stage it can start asearly as 12 years old, 15 years
old.
That's what we callParkinsonism, that's early onset
(10:56):
of Parkinson's.
So you can see it in a child,specifically when you notice
that in children like 12 yearsold, like those adolescents,
it's mainly linked to geneticproblems.
As we said, the cause can begenetics and or environmental.
So genetically you can havethis kind of defect in those
(11:17):
genes responsible forParkinson's disease and that
kids, unfortunately, can inheritthat defective genes and now
they can have this Parkinson'sdisease.
Does that earlier on set of itas you progress.
We say Parkinson's disease islike an aging disease.
That means as you're gettingolder, the tendency is that you
(11:37):
may be prone to Parkinson'sdisease.
So someone between 40, 50 yearsold up to 60 can also have
Parkinson's disease, right,because it's an aging disease.
However, as you're gettingabove 60 years old, I would
classify the late onset ofParkinson's disease.
Late stage of Parkinson's isabove 60 years old.
(11:59):
Now there's a higher chance foryou to get this kind of
business okay, that's veryinteresting.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
It's very important to know.
I remember last time you knowyou we spoke about Alzheimer's
and you mentioned thatAlzheimer's is more prone to be
diagnosed in females compared tomales.
What about Parkinson's disease?
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Actually, that's a good point.
You just raised the genderprevalence of this disease.
You find it's more in men thanit is in females.
It's about 1.5 times higher inmen than it is in women.
That's very important toconsider.
However, in women older than 85years old, we notice that
(12:51):
there's a higher prevalence inthis group those who are older
than 85 years old, the women.
You have more of them diagnosedwith Parkinson's disease.
Why?
Because it's life expectancyand aging.
Why?
Because women tend to livelonger than men.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yes, that's what it means.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
As women tend to live longer than men, that means you
will find more aging women thanyou find men and as they are
being aged and we saidParkinson's disease is mentally
it's an aging disease.
So you can find this prevalenceto be higher in women because
they live longer, so they areolder.
(13:35):
So you find this highprevalence in women than it is
in men Only in this range, 85and above among women.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I'm going to keep on going back to our last show I
remembered you mentioned that,according to research, one of
the reasons that you know thedisease Alzheimer's is more
prevalent in women compared tomen.
It's due to stress, anxiety anddepression.
So now you said Parkinson's,men tend to get affected more
(14:07):
compared to women, so is there areason why that's?
Speaker 2 (14:11):
a good point.
That's a very good question.
Actually, we just spoke about afew symptoms, whether it's
motor symptoms related tomovement, or non-motor symptoms,
non-movement symptoms.
When we talk about motorsymptoms, we spoke about bad
echinacea, slowness of movement.
We spoke about dystonia, likespasm.
(14:31):
We spoke about tremor.
Imagine as a man you starthaving this kind of problem.
You know men in general theywant to expose themselves.
That's the way women do.
But a man that can't, who wantto talk to a female and you
start shaking in front of thefemale.
You imagine what that can causeto you.
You will start to just close onyourself.
(14:54):
Right, you close on yourselfand that can trigger this kind
of you're anxious because youdon't know how would you react.
When you see that female, right, you will slow to stand up.
You you start shaking.
That's the tremor and you don'twant to be seen that way.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
You don't want to be seen that way.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
You don't want to be seen that way.
So that can create this kind ofanxiety, this kind of
depression.
So when that is created inthose men, not only they are
prone to have this disease butthey can have those kind of
symptoms that we saw inAlzheimer in female.
Then we saw them in men.
But with Parkinson the symptomsyou will see them in men than
you see them in female, becausethey are prone to feel anxious,
(15:34):
to feel depressed.
They are apathy, so they don'twant to do anything, they don't
want to go out at this timebecause they don't know how the
body will react.
So it's a very, veryinteresting when I say
interesting, quote unquote it'sa difficult problem for those
men to deal with.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
So that's why you can see that.
So it's like they will see itas an handicap to isolate
themselves and not to be inpublic or socialize with you
know, because hey, like youmentioned, men always wanna be
seen as being.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Men always want to be men wherever they go.
Men wants to be men.
You wanna portray yourself as aman.
Unfortunately, you have thiskind of problems that prevents
you from expressing yourself.
Therefore, you will reply onyourself.
You just close up, you just getback to yourself, you cannot go
forth, you know.
(16:24):
So that prevents you from doingthis and, of course, that can
lead to those mental healthissues related like to
depression, apathy, anxiety.
To all of those, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
So, based on my personal opinion, the challenge
in Parkinson's disease comparedto Alzheimer's disease, women
who will be diagnosed withAlzheimer's disease, will be
part.
You know, 65 and up, like youmentioned you know last time.
So there are women in the 40sdue to stress, depression and
(16:57):
anxiety, that can be diagnosed,you know, at a very early age,
like 40 and up.
But for parkinson, for the factthat you can be diagnosed with
the disease at the age of 12, atany given time, so it can be 12
, you can can be 20, so youdon't know.
So that's what make it mostchallenging for men compared to
(17:18):
women.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Exactly that's why the early onset of Parkinson's
disease, which we callParkinsonisms in the early age,
like those adolescents that canbe diagnosed with that.
Imagine a young boy who'sdiagnosed with this disease that
can affect his whole life.
Yes, yes, indeed, early age andget diagnosed with that.
(17:41):
But one things we have to saywith diagnosis.
I'm not a medical doctor, butwe know when you're being
diagnosed for with Parkinson'sdisease, only one symptom is not
enough to diagnose you assomebody who has Parkinson's
disease.
Only one symptom is not enoughto diagnose you as somebody who
has Parkinson's disease.
You may have this kind oftremor, but that's not enough to
say, okay, you have Parkinson'sdisease.
(18:03):
They have to see severaldifferent symptoms before they
can say, okay, you have thisdisease definitely so.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
I'm not a medical doctor myself, but I'm pretty
sure even you know like todiagnose somebody with a mental
health problem.
So they are you know, lookingfor many things the time, the
duration so it's like it's a lotof things to be considered
before you even say you knowwhat.
Because when you diagnosesomeone, diagnosing somebody is
very serious.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Of course.
That's why nobody can take theliberty to just say anything
about somebody's health so stayon your lane yeah, that's right,
we have to stay which we lackin this right now, at this time,
there are many people.
They think they can do anything.
They do not know where theirstrengths are, so they think
(18:50):
they are good at everything.
They can do everything,unfortunately, because you need
to stay in your lane, as yousaid.
Do what you can do, speak aboutwhat you can speak yeah,
exactly so.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Am I a biologist?
No, but for the fact that I canconduct some research with, and
inform or educate myself aboutparkinson's disease.
I cannot go and present myselfas a biologist to present a
whole presentation.
You know I may win about it Allright, all right.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
I would have said that.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
If you give me a PowerPoint presentation and you
send me, you say you know what,go and read that and present
that.
Even if I were to get presentthat, I should give you credit
to say you know what.
Dr Joseph is supposed to comeand present that to you, but
since he's not capable of doingit, so he asked me to come and
read this to you and next timehe will do the presentation.
(19:39):
I have to know how to stay onmy lane right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
I remember that during the covet time that I
heard people, people tellingothers to drink bleach to cure
covet 19.
So I heard those outwages clamsanyway.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
You want to get me into politics.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
I don't know if it's a politician who said that,
anyway, but I heard those kindof clams.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
No, but that was, that was, that was Seriously, it
was really outwages.
Yeah, if I may put it that way.
So it was really out of theline.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah.
So if we get back toParkinson's, there's one thing I
want to say.
We spoke about the geneticfactors.
We know today we have almost 12million people in the world who
are diagnosed with Parkinson'sdisease, so it's a big thing and
that number tends to literallydouble by 2050.
So today we're talking aboutalmost 12 million.
(20:40):
So by 2050 they project that itcan be about 25 millions.
And even in the United States,as I said earlier back from like
the last, the last paper I readactually about this, it was
published in the frontierjournal, so they're very
high-ranked journals.
It went back to 2021.
That says that we have about900 000 people in the united
(21:11):
states diagnosed with.
So it's increasing.
And talking about the unitedstates, there is a very big
geographical component in it.
So where you live in unitedstates, have an effect of the
prevalence of getting pocketsand business so you're talking
about the environmental factorsthat's the environmental factors
(21:33):
.
That is right because let's say,for example, if you take the
midwest of united states, likekansas, michigan, you take those
states, there the prevalence ofhaving Parkinson's disease is
higher than it is in otherplaces, in other states.
(21:53):
Why?
Because of the environmentalfactor.
As we said, we got thoseindustry there, those chemicals
that are being released there.
They can impact your health.
If you take what we call theParkinson's belt, that includes
Utah, colorado, those states aswell, they have a high
prevalence of Parkinson'sdisease there because of, again,
(22:16):
the environment, thosechemicals that are being
released there.
So not only where you live butalso what you eat can influence
your you to make you prone toParkinson's disease.
Because when you're getting adiet, a one symptoms we didn't
really speak about, it'sconstipation.
(22:36):
Constipation can be a non-motorsymptom linked to parkinson's
disease.
Oh really, yes, it can alsobecause, and the science.
Actually they defineconstipation as having fewer
than three bowel movement in aweek.
If you have fewer than three,they they understand that you
(23:00):
are like constipated, butconstipation that can lead to
stress.
You may be very stressed andyou can't really go to.
You cannot have this bowelmovement just by having the
stress.
But if you have a diet that isnot balanced, you don't have
enough fibers in your diet.
(23:20):
That can lead to constipationas well.
So that's why what you eat, youget the environmental factors,
your diet as well.
It's very important that youcontrol your diet because by not
controlling it that can have aneffect on your health and that
has an effect on your mental aswell.
Hello everyone, I'm Dr Beatrice Ippolit and this is
your World.
Hello everyone, Today, you know, we have the privilege to have
(00:21):
back on the show Dr FlorinalJoseph.
Dr Joseph, thank you for coming, and how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I'm good, Dr Ipoli.
Thank you for having me again.
Thank you for the invitationand you know, as I said, I'm a
resource to this show.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Okay, I like that, I like that, I like that.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Anyhow, I can be useful to you and to your
audience, I would try to makemyself available, and this is
exactly what happened today.
It seems like I can be usefulto your show today and I'm here
again.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Thanks for inviting me.
Okay, I really like that.
Last time you were with us, drJoseph, we spoke about
Alzheimer's disease, and todayso we're gonna talk about.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Parkinson's disease.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
It's like recovering the neurodegenerative diseases.
Actually, we spoke aboutAlzheimer's, we're talking now.
Today we'll be talking aboutParkinson's, so that's really
good, okay, like, like myaudience.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
You know I'm illiterate in that area, so what
was through it?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Look, you said illiterate.
I don't think you are.
You do know a lot about it, butwe're trying to bring it down
to the ground for your audience,for those who are listening to
us all the listeners.
We will be talking about it.
So, like we said in theprevious show, when we're
talking about Alzheimer'sdisease today, parkinson's
(01:49):
disease is one of those kind ofneurodegenerative diseases.
That means it's a disease thatis mainly characterized by those
cells, what we call the nervecells, the neuronal cells, those
cells in your brain.
They degenerate and when thosecells start to degenerate,
(02:12):
unfortunately when they getdamaged, they die.
There's no repair mechanismsfor them.
Unfortunately, those cells,when they degenerate again, they
can lead to some symptoms,including some movement symptoms
you may have.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
But does the brain have the capacity or the ability
to regenerate on itself?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Unfortunately, the nerve cells is not the same as
the normal.
The other cells we have,whether the som somatic cells,
the cells we have on our skin,the cells we have on our heart
or the sex cells this are thosecells that we have in our gonads
that have the ability toreproduce, either via mitosis or
(02:57):
meiosis, the cells in our brain.
It's not the same for them,unfortunately, when they don't
have the possibility toregenerate themselves, like
those cells I just talked about.
And, the worst thing as well,when it cells get damaged, there
is a process by which the cellcan repair itself.
(03:17):
There is a repair mechanismsthat can happen to the cells.
But the cells that we have inour brain, unfortunately, when,
when they get damaged, they die,they can't repair themselves.
And actually that's a very goodline of research.
Actually, I remember when I wasa PhD student, my lab is still
actually working on finding amechanism for the cells to
(03:39):
repair themselves.
We are in the process offinding something that can be
very helpful for those peoplewho are suffering with those
kind of neurodegenerativediseases, including Parkinson's
disease.
But the cells, they don'trepair themselves.
As a short answer,unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Ah, okay, so, but what are the current theories on
the cause of Parkinson'sdisease and how do genetic and
environmental factors contributeto the development of
Parkinson's disease?
And how do genetic andenvironmental factors contribute
to the development of thedisease?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
So you get it right.
You just said it here.
Unfortunately, the causes forParkinson's disease is quite
unknown.
We do not know the exact causefor Parkinson's disease.
But what we do know there aresome factors, as you mentioned
here genetic factors, that's onewe think, and the second one
it's environmental factors.
(04:30):
Those are the two factors thatwe think contribute to
Parkinson's disease.
Genetics, because you can havethose genes.
We have several genes that arelinked to Parkinson's disease
and those genes.
They can be mutated.
We can see how that mutationscan trigger to change in your
brain and in those cells andthat can trigger those symptoms
(04:52):
that we may be talking aboutlater on.
And those genes include, forinstance, the famous parkinson 9
, park 9 genes.
We have several other type park9, park 2, snc a, which is an
alpha-synuclein gene, and thealpha-synuclein genes.
It's very interesting in thesense that it's a small protein,
(05:12):
very small.
I'm so sorry for your audienceif I'm getting a little more
molecular.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
We need that because we want to fully understand
exactly what's going on withthat disease?
That is great.
So we have to fully understandthat's going on with that
disease.
That is great.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
So we have to fully understand that.
So what happens here?
There's a small protein that wecall alpha-synuclein.
It's very small because it'sabout 14 kilodalgons, so very,
very small protein that we found.
That this protein it has to dowith some other granules that
accumulate in our brain which wecall Lewy bodies.
(05:48):
Those Lewy bodies, theyaccumulate in a specific region
of your brain which we callsubstantia niagara.
When those Lewy bodiesaccumulate there, so they
prevent those neuronal cells tosecrete a very important
neurotransmitters that we calldopamine.
(06:09):
It prevents those cells tosecrete we call them
dopaminergic cells, neuronalcells.
They cannot secrete dopamine.
So dopamine, literally it's asmall protein.
It's a small protein, it's asmall molecule, I would say that
literally puts your brain incontact with the rest of your
(06:29):
body.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
That's the importance of the dopamine.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Dopamine is extremely important because it's
signaling molecules.
You know all the signals.
They come from your brain whenthose nerve cells they fire.
When they fire it's like thisfire you have behind us here.
So they are sending a message,but for that message to be
distributed throughout your body, the dopamine you need.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
The department is responsible for that it's a
neurotransmitters.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
It transmits this message.
So when you have those neuronalcells, those nerve cells, they
cannot secrete dopamine.
So now you have those moleculesthat I call earlier lower
bodies, that accumulate in thatsubstantia nigra and that cause
you will start having someproblem in within your whole
(07:17):
body that is linked to thisproblem that we have in our
brain.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
When you say Dr Joseph, some problems, so can
you mention at least one or two?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Of course that brings us to actually the symptoms we
can have.
They can link to some movementproblem.
Those are the motor symptoms,movement including, for instance
, slowness in your movement.
For instance, someone whosuffers from Parkinson's disease
.
You may be sitting down butwhen you're standing up you
(07:48):
can't.
You are slow to to to stand up.
The jargon to that is bodykinesia, somebody who suffers
bradykinesia.
That means they are slow in themovement.
Not only that, they have tremor, like you may want to take
something and it's involuntary.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
When you have tremor you want to grab something and
you start to shake.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yeah, your hands start shaking involuntarily and
it's asymmetrical thosemovements.
The tremor movement isasymmetrical.
What does that?
mean you start feeling it onlyin one side of your body.
This a means without it's notthe perfect symmetrical, where
you feel it in both ends.
However, as you're progressingin this disease, you will start
(08:32):
feeling in both hands the sameway.
You're taking something, youstart shaking here, you can feel
it as well with this hand also,you can feel it with this hand.
So it's asymmetrical at first,at the beginning, where you
start feeling that shaking,that's tremor, and you have the
slow movement as well.
And as you're progressing,these symptoms that we call
(08:54):
dystonia.
Dystonia does it's like youstart to pour saliva.
Right, it is involuntarymovement, like you may be
sitting and without knowing it,you're not doing anything and
saliva start to be pouring outof your mouth.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
That can have some social impact on you right when
you can prevent you from goingoutside exactly realizing with
others exactly you don't wantfor people to notice that you
those are dealing with thispower that is so true what you
say, and again you will see howthat will link to with to
(09:32):
depression and anxiety you havein
Speaker 2 (09:34):
that show the mental health side of your show.
In general, it's mainly focusedon mental health and you can
see how Parkinson's disease canlead to that, because what I
just said and you just said ittoo when you start having the
social problem, that can lead towhat we call the non-motor
symptoms.
(09:54):
The non-motor symptoms.
Those are symptoms that theyare not really related to
movement, but the consequencescan clearly link to mental
health, like depression, as yousaid, anxiety and people will
start to isolate themselves moreexactly that can even lead to
(10:14):
suicide.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Yeah, a lot of very serious, oh wow those are the
kind of businesses.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
You don't hear a lot of people talking much about
them because in united states,fine sense we have approximately
less than a million peoplediagnosed with Parkinson's.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
What is the age of onset?
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Look, we can classify them as we did for Alzheimer's
disease.
We can classify Parkinson'sdisease into different stages
the early stage, the beginningstage and the late stage.
The early stage it can start asearly as 12 years old, 15 years
old.
That's what we callParkinsonism, that's early onset
(10:56):
of Parkinson's.
So you can see it in a child,specifically when you notice
that in children like 12 yearsold, like those adolescents,
it's mainly linked to geneticproblems.
As we said, the cause can begenetics and or environmental.
So genetically you can havethis kind of defect in those
(11:17):
genes responsible forParkinson's disease and that
kids, unfortunately, can inheritthat defective genes and now
they can have this Parkinson'sdisease.
Does that earlier on set of itas you progress.
We say Parkinson's disease islike an aging disease.
That means as you're gettingolder, the tendency is that you
(11:37):
may be prone to Parkinson'sdisease.
So someone between 40, 50 yearsold up to 60 can also have
Parkinson's disease, right,because it's an aging disease.
However, as you're gettingabove 60 years old, I would
classify the late onset ofParkinson's disease.
Late stage of Parkinson's isabove 60 years old.
(11:59):
Now there's a higher chance foryou to get this kind of
business okay, that's veryinteresting.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
It's very important to know.
I remember last time you knowyou we spoke about Alzheimer's
and you mentioned thatAlzheimer's is more prone to be
diagnosed in females compared tomales.
What about Parkinson's disease?
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Actually, that's a good point.
You just raised the genderprevalence of this disease.
You find it's more in men thanit is in females.
It's about 1.5 times higher inmen than it is in women.
That's very important toconsider.
However, in women older than 85years old, we notice that
(12:51):
there's a higher prevalence inthis group those who are older
than 85 years old, the women.
You have more of them diagnosedwith Parkinson's disease.
Why?
Because it's life expectancyand aging.
Why?
Because women tend to livelonger than men.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yes, that's what it means.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
As women tend to live longer than men, that means you
will find more aging women thanyou find men and as they are
being aged and we saidParkinson's disease is mentally
it's an aging disease.
So you can find this prevalenceto be higher in women because
they live longer, so they areolder.
(13:35):
So you find this highprevalence in women than it is
in men Only in this range, 85and above among women.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I'm going to keep on going back to our last show I
remembered you mentioned that,according to research, one of
the reasons that you know thedisease Alzheimer's is more
prevalent in women compared tomen.
It's due to stress, anxiety anddepression.
So now you said Parkinson's,men tend to get affected more
(14:07):
compared to women, so is there areason why that's?
Speaker 2 (14:11):
a good point.
That's a very good question.
Actually, we just spoke about afew symptoms, whether it's
motor symptoms related tomovement, or non-motor symptoms,
non-movement symptoms.
When we talk about motorsymptoms, we spoke about bad
echinacea, slowness of movement.
We spoke about dystonia, likespasm.
(14:31):
We spoke about tremor.
Imagine as a man you starthaving this kind of problem.
You know men in general theywant to expose themselves.
That's the way women do.
But a man that can't, who wantto talk to a female and you
start shaking in front of thefemale.
You imagine what that can causeto you.
You will start to just close onyourself.
(14:54):
Right, you close on yourselfand that can trigger this kind
of you're anxious because youdon't know how would you react.
When you see that female, right, you will slow to stand up.
You you start shaking.
That's the tremor and you don'twant to be seen that way.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
You don't want to be seen that way.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
You don't want to be seen that way.
So that can create this kind ofanxiety, this kind of
depression.
So when that is created inthose men, not only they are
prone to have this disease butthey can have those kind of
symptoms that we saw inAlzheimer in female.
Then we saw them in men.
But with Parkinson the symptomsyou will see them in men than
you see them in female, becausethey are prone to feel anxious,
(15:34):
to feel depressed.
They are apathy, so they don'twant to do anything, they don't
want to go out at this timebecause they don't know how the
body will react.
So it's a very, veryinteresting when I say
interesting, quote unquote it'sa difficult problem for those
men to deal with.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
So that's why you can see that.
So it's like they will see itas an handicap to isolate
themselves and not to be inpublic or socialize with you
know, because hey, like youmentioned, men always wanna be
seen as being.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Men always want to be men wherever they go.
Men wants to be men.
You wanna portray yourself as aman.
Unfortunately, you have thiskind of problems that prevents
you from expressing yourself.
Therefore, you will reply onyourself.
You just close up, you just getback to yourself, you cannot go
forth, you know.
(16:24):
So that prevents you from doingthis and, of course, that can
lead to those mental healthissues related like to
depression, apathy, anxiety.
To all of those, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
So, based on my personal opinion, the challenge
in Parkinson's disease comparedto Alzheimer's disease, women
who will be diagnosed withAlzheimer's disease, will be
part.
You know, 65 and up, like youmentioned you know last time.
So there are women in the 40sdue to stress, depression and
(16:57):
anxiety, that can be diagnosed,you know, at a very early age,
like 40 and up.
But for parkinson, for the factthat you can be diagnosed with
the disease at the age of 12, atany given time, so it can be 12
, you can can be 20, so youdon't know.
So that's what make it mostchallenging for men compared to
(17:18):
women.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Exactly that's why the early onset of Parkinson's
disease, which we callParkinsonisms in the early age,
like those adolescents that canbe diagnosed with that.
Imagine a young boy who'sdiagnosed with this disease that
can affect his whole life.
Yes, yes, indeed, early age andget diagnosed with that.
(17:41):
But one things we have to saywith diagnosis.
I'm not a medical doctor, butwe know when you're being
diagnosed for with Parkinson'sdisease, only one symptom is not
enough to diagnose you assomebody who has Parkinson's
disease.
Only one symptom is not enoughto diagnose you as somebody who
has Parkinson's disease.
You may have this kind oftremor, but that's not enough to
say, okay, you have Parkinson'sdisease.
(18:03):
They have to see severaldifferent symptoms before they
can say, okay, you have thisdisease definitely so.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
I'm not a medical doctor myself, but I'm pretty
sure even you know like todiagnose somebody with a mental
health problem.
So they are you know, lookingfor many things the time, the
duration so it's like it's a lotof things to be considered
before you even say you knowwhat.
Because when you diagnosesomeone, diagnosing somebody is
very serious.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Of course.
That's why nobody can take theliberty to just say anything
about somebody's health so stayon your lane yeah, that's right,
we have to stay which we lackin this right now, at this time,
there are many people.
They think they can do anything.
They do not know where theirstrengths are, so they think
(18:50):
they are good at everything.
They can do everything,unfortunately, because you need
to stay in your lane, as yousaid.
Do what you can do, speak aboutwhat you can speak yeah,
exactly so.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Am I a biologist?
No, but for the fact that I canconduct some research with, and
inform or educate myself aboutparkinson's disease.
I cannot go and present myselfas a biologist to present a
whole presentation.
You know I may win about it Allright, all right.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
I would have said that.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
If you give me a PowerPoint presentation and you
send me, you say you know what,go and read that and present
that.
Even if I were to get presentthat, I should give you credit
to say you know what.
Dr Joseph is supposed to comeand present that to you, but
since he's not capable of doingit, so he asked me to come and
read this to you and next timehe will do the presentation.
(19:39):
I have to know how to stay onmy lane right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
I remember that during the covet time that I
heard people, people tellingothers to drink bleach to cure
covet 19.
So I heard those outwages clamsanyway.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
You want to get me into politics.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
I don't know if it's a politician who said that,
anyway, but I heard those kindof clams.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
No, but that was, that was, that was Seriously, it
was really outwages.
Yeah, if I may put it that way.
So it was really out of theline.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah.
So if we get back toParkinson's, there's one thing I
want to say.
We spoke about the geneticfactors.
We know today we have almost 12million people in the world who
are diagnosed with Parkinson'sdisease, so it's a big thing and
that number tends to literallydouble by 2050.
So today we're talking aboutalmost 12 million.
(20:40):
So by 2050 they project that itcan be about 25 millions.
And even in the United States,as I said earlier back from like
the last, the last paper I readactually about this, it was
published in the frontierjournal, so they're very
high-ranked journals.
It went back to 2021.
That says that we have about900 000 people in the united
(21:11):
states diagnosed with.
So it's increasing.
And talking about the unitedstates, there is a very big
geographical component in it.
So where you live in unitedstates, have an effect of the
prevalence of getting pocketsand business so you're talking
about the environmental factorsthat's the environmental factors
(21:33):
.
That is right because let's say,for example, if you take the
midwest of united states, likekansas, michigan, you take those
states, there the prevalence ofhaving Parkinson's disease is
higher than it is in otherplaces, in other states.
(21:53):
Why?
Because of the environmentalfactor.
As we said, we got thoseindustry there, those chemicals
that are being released there.
They can impact your health.
If you take what we call theParkinson's belt, that includes
Utah, colorado, those states aswell, they have a high
prevalence of Parkinson'sdisease there because of, again,
(22:16):
the environment, thosechemicals that are being
released there.
So not only where you live butalso what you eat can influence
your you to make you prone toParkinson's disease.
Because when you're getting adiet, a one symptoms we didn't
really speak about, it'sconstipation.
(22:36):
Constipation can be a non-motorsymptom linked to parkinson's
disease.
Oh really, yes, it can alsobecause, and the science.
Actually they defineconstipation as having fewer
than three bowel movement in aweek.
If you have fewer than three,they they understand that you
(23:00):
are like constipated, butconstipation that can lead to
stress.
You may be very stressed andyou can't really go to.
You cannot have this bowelmovement just by having the
stress.
But if you have a diet that isnot balanced, you don't have
enough fibers in your diet.
(23:20):
That can lead to constipationas well.
So that's why what you eat, youget the environmental factors,
your diet as well.
It's very important that youcontrol your diet because by not
controlling it that can have aneffect on your health and that
has an effect on your mental aswell.
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