Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone.
I'm Dr Beatrice Ippolit andthis is your World, mentioning
about diet or what you eat.
Large consumption of alcoholfor the drug abusers, so is that
(00:24):
something that needs to betaken into consideration as well
?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
That is a very good
point, because you mentioned
something about the dopamine.
Exactly.
That's a very good point thatyou raised.
Let me tell you I had thesediscussions with one of my
friends.
We were talking about thealcohol consumption.
I am not sitting here to tellpeople not to drink alcohol.
That's not what I'm doing.
Our body needs alcohol.
(00:48):
We need that as a chemical.
It can help in digestion, forinstance.
The problem is when you'reabusing it, and it's not only
alcohol.
Anything you're abusing willhave negative impact on you.
Anything.
It's not only alcohol, even thefood, the tea you're having
(01:08):
here, this great tea that I'mhaving here.
Thank you for it.
If you abuse that tea, it canhave some negative impact on
your health.
So it's the same for alcohol.
If you're abusing alcohol,you're abusing drugs.
You're taking more than youshould be taking now.
You rely only on that.
(01:29):
That can impact your system.
But forget alcohol.
I'm not getting into thosedetails.
When you take the alcohol, itcan impact your movement when
you get it out of controlbecause those hydroxyl from the
alcohol that you're getting,they can bind to other molecules
(01:53):
in your system.
That can trigger some negativeresults that you can have.
So when you take it, a littleshot of alcohol is good, but
when you keep abusing it.
It's not good for systembecause it can impact your brain
and when it's impact your brand, the signal cannot be set
properly what alcohol or drugscan do to the dopamine in your
(02:16):
brain look, we said those are notransmitters.
Dopamines are neurotransmitters.
That means they are beingsecreted by the neuronal cells.
So when you're taking alcoholyou're abusing it.
I would rather say it like thatYou're abusing alcohol, you
take more than you should betaking.
What it will do, it will impactthose neuronal cells in your
(02:38):
brain when it impacts thosecells.
So it's not even theParkinson's disease per se.
You are not being diagnosedwith Parkinson's disease.
But when you drink alcohol, ifI sit there, I go to your bar
here, the beautiful bar, I seeyou get there.
There's a variety of drinks IfI sit there and start drinking
alcohol without control, thatwill impact my neuronal cells.
(03:00):
So those neuronal cells willnot be able to do to fulfill the
function which is, among all,secreting dopamine.
And we said dopamine isextremely important as a
neurotransmitter.
So if it cannot secret it, Iwill not be able to function
properly.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
So when you take it
you're abusing it, whether it's
alcohol or any type of drugs itwill have this kind of impact on
your, on your back can youdiscuss the correct therapeutic
options for parkinson's disease,including dopamine replacement
therapy and a deep brainsimulation?
Speaker 2 (03:38):
now we're getting to
the uh, how can we try to get
those diseases under control?
There are many things we can do.
When I say we, I'm not amedical doctor.
What I do, I do research.
I try to find a cure, but notto give the cure To treat it.
I'm looking for the cure, nottreating the patient for the
(04:00):
disease.
If I get anything that comesout of it, you get it.
Now you can treat the patientwith it.
Therapy is important in anythingand to me you don't have to
have Parkinson's disease tofollow a certain type of regimen
of therapy Anything, becausewhen you try to do something
that is good for your body, itcan impact other parts of your
(04:22):
body.
So therapy is one of them.
Now the closest one is likethose deep stimulations.
They can put some electrodes inyour brain so they can
stimulate the secretion of thosedopamines.
They activate those neuronalcells to secrete dopamine by
stimulations.
What they do?
They have to secrete dopamineby stimulations.
What they do?
They have to put someelectrodes in your brain.
(04:43):
Those are the kind ofexperiment that we do in the
labs by stimulating those cellsto secrete those dopamine.
Other things we do, especiallyin my lab, as I was telling you
doesn't have a process, becausethose damaging cells, when you
have those neuronal cells thatare damaged, they can't fulfill
(05:04):
their functions, they cannotsecrete dopamine because they
are damaged.
Does it have a way?
Those cells now, when they getdamaged, instead of dying, does
it have a way they can repairthemselves?
And that's a very importantfield of research.
It's a very, very importantfield of research.
By finding a way we can helpthose cells to repair themselves
and that's a very importantfield of research.
It's a very, very importantfield of research.
By finding a way we can helpthose cells to repair themselves
(05:25):
.
If we know the mechanisms bywhich they get damaged, we
probably can figure out how theycan repair themselves, because
we know that what happens inother cells when they get
damaged, some other cells thatcan get damaged, like if I'm
talking about the skin cells,for instance, it's not a problem
because those cells they canreplace themselves very rapidly.
They are multiplying throughmitosis, which is a very, very
(05:50):
good way of the cells toreplenish themselves.
But unfortunately, with theneuronal cells it's not the same
thing.
So if we can help the cells torepair themselves, that will be
great and that can prevent thosekind of neuronal, I would say
neurodegenerative diseases.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
In terms of research.
Is there any work that is beingconducted at this level?
We have some work.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
We have very good
advance.
We have moved quite well inthat field.
There's a group at Harvard whowas working on cell repair how
the cells can repair themselves,of course and there's a group
also at SUNY Downstate who'sworking on that.
(06:33):
Dr William Kirikou is workingon that.
This kind of work.
He's doing this kind of findingall the players that can get
involved into repairingthemselves.
Again, as I, I'm talking aboutbecause that was my research
project where I was working oneof those protein that is
involved actually in parkinson'sdisease.
(06:53):
It's a, it's an ATPase that Iwas working with.
I mentioned mentioned itearlier the famous Park 9, right
, the famous Park 9.
That's very important there.
So there is advance.
We are advancing in this way,finding a way to help ourselves
to repair themselves.
(07:14):
Yeah, there's some good.
Science is not slipping.
We're still working.
Hopefully we can have moremoney to fund our research
instead of getting money awayfrom us okay.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
So talking about
money, last time, you know, we
spoke about alzheimer's.
You mentioned that, you know soit's a very costly disease.
I don't remember the numbersit's okay but you say that the
government spent a lot of money,billions of billions of dollars
(07:43):
, to take care of that disease.
So how costly Parkinson's iscompared to Alzheimer's.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
To me, a disease is a
disease, of course, whether
it's Parkinson's disease orAlzheimer's disease and, I would
say, all the new generativediseases, huntington, als.
They are a burden because youneed to find cure for them and
research is not cheap.
I always tell people researchis not cheap.
Parkinson's disease that costsbillions of dollars.
(08:11):
If I tried to put a number onit, probably I would go around
$25 billion.
It's a very costly disease.
Yearly, approximately On ayearly basis, it's about $25
billion being spent on finding acure to Parkinson's disease.
And again, I tried to put anumber on it.
(08:34):
But it can be more than thatBecause research is not cheap at
all.
Even the stimulations thatwe're talking about.
We're talking about electrodesto put on your brain to
stimulate those cells.
It's not a simple thing.
The surgery itself, if somebodywants to.
You have Parkinson's disease,you're diagnosed with that and a
surgeon is coming to do a kindof brain surgery.
(08:57):
That will cost a lot of likehundreds of thousands of dollars
just for one surgery.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Oh, so if you were to
have a surgery for Parkinson's?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
If you were to look
into your brain to see what's
going?
Speaker 1 (09:08):
on there, oh, to look
into your brain.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Yeah, you can have
those kind of deep scanning.
You're talking about a DT scan.
That's one of the process.
You can just get deep into thescan to see what's going on To
see what's going on Because thesubstantia nigra, it's really
deep inside of your brain.
So to get into that, to look atit, it's not a simple kind of
(09:32):
stimulation or surgery thatyou'll be doing.
It costs money.
So, to get back to thequestions you asked, it costs a
lot of money to do research,including researching on
Parkinson's disease, and I wouldput the number of about $25
million on a yearly basis.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Okay, that's fair
enough.
So if we were to stay onresearch, what are the most
promising areas of research inParkinson's disease and how do
you see the field developing inthe next five to 10 years?
Speaker 2 (10:03):
What is great about
this and I really love the
American community in this whenthere is a problem, a kind of
disease that affects society atlarge, we have a lot of people
try to come forth and see howthey can find a way to support
each other.
For example, with Parkinson'sdisease, we have the Parkinson's
(10:26):
Foundation where we have that.
People who have a lot of moneythey come together, they raise
money and all of those who arevictims of this disease they can
come and try to get comfort ortry to find a cure.
They raise funds and invest infinding a cure for that disease.
So the fill is still emerging.
As I said, we get about it'salmost a million people
(10:50):
diagnosed in the United Stateswith Parkinson's disease 900,000
.
It will be, let's say, in aboutfive years it's projected to be
about 1.2 million.
So it's a good number.
But we have the ParkinsonFoundation that is there to help
those people.
Not only they are raising funds, but also they are supporting
each other.
They are supporting each otherin this field and mostly it's a
(11:12):
lot of people get a lot of money, so they don't mind spending
the money and they don't mind tofind a way to help.
So the field is emerging and wehave scientists who are also
focusing on finding a cure tothis disease.
So in five years I don't knowwhere will we stand.
In ten years, I don't knowwhere what we will get.
But the only thing I can sayfor sure we are not sleeping.
(11:35):
Researchers are not sleeping.
They are still working on adaily basis, nights and days, to
find some something to helpwith this kind of disease.
Like any other researchers,like an oncologist, they are
doing the same thing.
Immunologists, they are doingthe same thing.
They are working nights anddays, and my daily work now put
me in touch with oncologists,immunologists, molecular
(11:56):
biologists, basic scientists.
We speak every day and I cansee how they are working hard to
find cures for diseases.
Probably while you're sleeping,we are still working to find
something good for you.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Okay.
So I'm glad that you know wehave people like you working on
our behalf.
I like the way you say when weare sleeping sleeping because
sometimes you know you have thisnew medication, you have these
new things coming sometimes youhear it you're like, oh, I
didn't know about this, when wasthat happened?
So it's like, oh yeah, therewas a research that was
(12:33):
conducted and the result cameout Right, you know.
So it's like we have scientistslike you, you know, who
basically work day and night.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
There are countless
clinical trials that are being
run right now on a daily basisand night and day, as I like to
say, countless clinical trialsthat are being run right now to
find a cure for any type ofdisease you might have.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
So and I thank you
for your service.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Ah, you know it's a
duty, it's one of my duties.
We have to work on those tohelp society to move forward.
That's why we need to recognizethose people who are tired of
still working Like everybodyelse, in whatever field you are
in your field, you're doingeverything you can for your
people, for your patients.
It's the same thing.
It's our job.
That's what we chose to be.
(13:22):
We chose to become a scientist.
We chose to be scientists, sowe have to work on behalf of the
populations.
We choose to be scientists, sowe have to work on behalf of the
populations, and that means wehave to work for the greater
good and the greater good.
It's like there's somethingthat happens and we can say okay
, try this.
That's what we are doing.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Yes, one thing you
know, so I like about research.
So it's like we don't know whatthe power room is, but we want
to find out.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
That's why we call it
out, that's why we call it
research.
That's why we call it researchLike we are still curious to
find out what's going on.
That's what guides us Exactly,and there are some research.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
You know that took a
very long time before, like 10,
15, 20 years before they reallycan come out with something to
say, you know what.
So we conducted that research,research, you know, and this is
what the results are 2019.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Covid hate.
It's a pandemic people workabout.
On that we had a cure.
We have vaccines.
Those pharmaceutical companiesthey find cure, so they find a
way to get this under control.
But we don't stop working onCOVID-19.
We're still working on COVID-19.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
They have a long way
to go with COVID-19, because
it's like even myself, I tooktwo shots of that vaccine.
I don't know what the heck wasthat in that vaccine, but I know
people who have took thevaccine.
I have a friend of mine who'sstill paralyzed until today
after she took the vaccine.
So I don't know if there wereother pre-existing conditions
(14:52):
that she was dealing with.
This I don't know.
So I try on a daily basis tooffer my support as much as I
can, but it's sad to watch herand she was in the medical field
as a physician assistant to seeher not being able to do the
work that she loves after shetook that vaccine.
(15:12):
So it was like heartbreaking.
So it's like and we don't know.
So it's like it's some thingsI'm still waiting for research
to say okay.
So I know don't get me wrong,me wrong the vaccine have saved
lives.
A lot of lives were saved.
I'm not gonna take that away.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
However, a lot of
people until today are dealing
with consequences from thevaccine and research haven't
said anything, actually one if Isay something, if I just divert
a little bit from the topic ofthe day to talk about this.
Look, I am not a microbiologist, I'm a basic scientist, a
microbiologist.
However, what I can say and I'mglad you said that vaccines
(16:05):
save lives, vaccines in general-save lives lives.
I want people to hear it nowthere are people who don't
believe that vaccine saves lives.
They anti-vax people, they,they.
They keep talking aboutvaccines, keep talking bad about
vaccines.
Saves lives great.
And now COVID-19.
(16:25):
It's the same thing.
You may take aenol and thatTylenol can have an adverse
effect on you.
A Tylenol Anything you'retaking, can have an effect based
on your preconditions, yourhealth situation.
It can be just as simple as aTylenol.
(16:46):
So what happens with COVID-19vaccines and I applaud all the
scientists who work in thatfield to get those vaccines the
pharmaceutical companies?
I applaud them all for finding,in a very short period of time,
a way to get this virus undercontrol.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah, that virus was
out of control.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Yeah get it under
control and if it was not those
tireless works, probably wedon't know where the world would
have been at this moment.
So that's the big picture of.
Of course, anything, as I said,you're taking can have some
adverse effect on your system,including the vaccines for
(17:34):
COVID-19.
When you took it, some peoplethey may react negatively with
those vaccines.
Some can be reacting positively, as it's the case for the
majority of us.
I am so sorry for those who hada bad reaction towards the
(17:55):
vaccines.
I'm very sorry about that.
I have friends of mine who untilnow they have very bad,
negative, actually very negativeeffects when they took the
vaccine.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
There are some people
who even lost their lives after
taking the vaccine.
I understand when you doresearch or certain things, so
it's like you know it's notgonna be effective.
You know 100% for everybodythat you know like 0.0 yeah
that's what we call, I think,background noise in research.
(18:30):
That's right, we got this back.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
If I'm analyzing,
comparing how many like billions
of people who were affected orin this world, and hundreds of
millions of people took thevaccines and from that, hundreds
of not every life matters.
I don't want anyone to thinkthat I'm just saying that life
(18:53):
doesn't matter.
Every single life matters.
But if you consider hundreds ofmillions of people to the
vaccines and their lives weresaved, and we have 100 people,
or 1,000 people, unfortunately,who had a bad reaction towards
(19:13):
vaccines, I would consider thatas background noise.
If I'm analyzing the data, yeah, I would say that, although the
lies matter to me, whomeverdied from it, I would say I'm so
sorry about that, but when weconsider the greater goods,
those who benefited from this,it's really, really important.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
But I'm still waiting
to see a good research outcome
on that we are looking at whatwe call today long COVID.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Long COVID is what
happens after COVID.
What's going on right now?
Covid it's what happens afterCOVID.
What's going on right now?
There are studies, longitudinalstudies, that are being
conducted to see those peopletook the vaccines Now, analyzing
those people.
What's going on there.
Until today they took thevaccines.
What is happening with themright now?
They are following up withthose people to see what's going
(20:06):
on.
A lot of research is stillbeing conducted in that field so
that we can get plausibleanswers to those kind of
questions.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
I would love for
those research to be done or
conducted on a large sample size.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Great, that is good,
that's true.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
The larger is your
sample size, the better is your
research outcome.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
The statistics can be
more powerful.
The larger is your sample size,the better is your research
outcome.
The statistics can be morepowerful the larger is your
sample.
But we know when we have thepopulations you can choose your
population of interest from thebigger populations and there are
rules to choose that as well.
So we follow the rules, wefollow the scientific process
and the scientific method to dothat.
So definitely the result can beextrapolated to a bigger
(20:51):
population.
As soon as we will finish withthis kind of okay, let's get
back to parkinson.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Though kovid is still
a health issue.
Let's go back to parkinson.
Research indicate that severealcohol use may cause dementia.
Is this the same for parkinson,though?
You mention alcohol and drugabuse?
(21:18):
Yeah, but the fact thatresearch mentioned that can be a
trigger for dementia, I justwant to make sure that if it is
the same for Parkinson's, Let meclarify something here, as
you're talking about dementia,because I heard that many, many
times.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
When people are
talking, they talk about
dementia, they talk aboutParkinson's, they talk about
Alzheimer's.
I want to clarify this.
We have a series ofneurodegenerative diseases, of
neurodegenerative diseases, allof those neurodegenerative
diseases.
Those are diseases where yourdopaminergic cells, the neuronal
(21:55):
cells that secret dopamines,they are affected, they are
impaired, and that impairmentcan lead to either Alzheimer's
disease, parkinson's disease,alzheimer's disease, parkinson's
disease, als all of those, allthese groups of diseases that
(22:18):
Josh talked about Alzheimer's,als, parkinson's they are all
grouped into that category wecall dementia.
So dementia is an umbrella underwhich you find those diseases
Alzheimer's, parkinson's's, als,including Huntington disease so
you have dementia, and thoseare subtypes yeah, exactly, they
are on beneath of this.
(22:39):
It's like you have the umbrellahere and you have those on
beneath of this umbrella.
I wanted to clarify this ingeneral for people.
When they are talking, theyknow dementia is not a specific
disease compared to Parkinson'sor Alzheimer's, all those they
are under dementia, okay.
So I hope that's clear foreverybody who are listening,
(23:00):
because you know, the goal is tohelp people to understand, to
educate.
That's the goal of the show.
That's why I love this, yourWorld.
It talks about everything.
I loved it because we areeducating.
We need people to understand.
They don't say in, they don'tspeak anyhow no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
That's a good point,
because even you know, like you
know, so some people, they maytalk about Alzheimer, but as
they believe that Alzheimer isthe same as dementia or, as I'm
raising, this is, dementia isanother disease, parkinson is
another one.
So I'm glad that you were ableto bring that clarification for
everybody, myself including Iusually talk to my students like
(23:41):
that.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
I always try to
stress on that.
When we're talking, when I'mstudying the macromolecules,
that means one of themacromolecules I talked about.
It's protein.
And when I'm talking aboutprotein, I get to a class of
protein that we call enzymes.
I always tell them all enzymesare protein, but not all
(24:03):
proteins are enzymes it's thesame thing.
When we're talking about fat andlipids, people have the
tendency to consider all lipidsas fats, but that's not true.
All fats are lipids.
It's a class of lipids, but notall lipids are fats, because we
have the sterols, likecholesterols, estrogen,
(24:25):
testosterone.
Those are lipids, but they arenot fats, so I just love to
clarify those.
Of course, if I'm talking aboutthe oil triacylglyceride, those
are lipids as well.
They are categorized as underfat.
If I take butter, that's fat,those are lipids.
(24:45):
But that doesn't mean if I'mtalking about cholesterol, I
would say that's fat.
No, that's not it.
It's different.
All lipids are not fat, allfats are lipids.
The same way, all enzymes areprotein, but not all proteins
are enzymes.
I like to clarify this.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Okay, people.
You just heard Dr JosephDementia is the umbrella.
Heard, Dr Joseph dementia isthe umbrella and underneath of
dementia, we have Alzheimer.
Parkinson, als, all of those.
Yeah, that's right.
Thank you, Professor.