First hints Parkinson's can be stopped (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News website

4 August 2017
From the section Health

It may be possible to stop the progression of Parkinson's disease with a drug {exenatide} normally used in type 2 diabetes, a clinical trial suggests.

Current drugs help manage the symptoms, but do not prevent brain cells dying.

The trial on 62 patients, published in the Lancet, hints the medicine halted the progression of the disease.

The University College London (UCL) team is "excited", but it urges caution as any long-term benefit is uncertain and the drug needs more testing.

"There's absolutely no doubt the most important unmet need in Parkinson's is a drug to slow down disease progression, it's unarguable," Prof Tom Foltynie, one of the researchers, told the BBC.
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more: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-40814250

[Cold War Spook]

1. I am not sure it is even a hint.

In 2005, at the age of 62, I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. Within 3 years, I could not control my arms or legs and none of the L-Dopa drugs helped. In 2008, a new neurologist put me on Rasagiline and within a couple of months, all I had were small tremors in my hands. I am still that way. Now a new neurologist is telling me that I do not have Parkinson's Disease.

I wrote the above to show how hard it is to diagnose Parkinson's Disease. In fact it is almost impossible with neurologists testing for every other disease they can think of.

First, a study of 62 people is meaningless. And second, do they all really have Parkinson's Disease? I do hope that it will be helpful for patients in the future.

As I said before, all I have are tremors in my hands. Unfortunately, the article is correct about brain cells dying. I dictated this to my loving wife. She fixed the grammar.