News

Although Parkinson’s disease (PD) is largely known for tremor and other motor symptoms, the vast majority of patients in an informal survey said they noticed non-motor issues, such as cognitive changes, first. The one-question Facebook survey, conducted by the medical device company PhotoPharmics, was reported to draw more…

Orthostatic hypotension, a sudden drop in blood pressure when changing positions, can significantly affect both function and quality of life for people with Parkinson’s disease. However, this non-motor symptom — typically attributed to later disease stages — is not associated with an increased risk of Parkinson’s and…

The International Linked Clinical Trials (iLCT) program, a collaborative effort from The Cure Parkinson’s Trust (CPT), the Van Andel Institute (VAI), and now the John Black Charitable Foundation (JBCF), has pledged $6.75 million over three years to support clinical trials of potential Parkinson’s disease treatments.

Scientists have developed a new system that can provide a controlled and sustained release of parkinsonian medications, thus enabling better management of Parkinson’s disease. The mechanisms behind this delivery system were described in the study, “Multi-Drug-Loaded Microcapsules with Controlled Release for Management of Parkinson’s Disease,” published in the…

Simvastatin, a widely-used cholesterol-lowering medication, failed to slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease, according to data from a Phase 2 trial. Based on these findings, it was decided that a future Phase 3 study assessing the safety and efficacy of simvastatin in these patients would not be…

The Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP) initiative has awarded a $7.2 million grant to a research team working to unravel the structure and biology of leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2), a protein linked to familial Parkinson’s disease. The three-year grant, issued by the Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF), was…

Reduced protein synthesis could serve as a biomarker to help diagnose Parkinson’s disease, even before motor symptoms appear, a recent study suggests. The study, “Protein synthesis is suppressed in sporadic and familial Parkinson’s disease by LRRK2,” was published in The FASEB Journal. The LRRK2 protein (leucine-rich repeat…

Fatigue increases over time in people with Parkinson’s disease and is associated with several factors, including sex, age, depression symptoms, and higher cognitive function, a study has found. The results of the longitudinal study, “Progression of fatigue in Parkinson’s disease – A nine-year follow-up,” were published…