Causes of Parkinson’s Disease

The causes of Parkinson’s disease are those factors that influence the occurrence and development of this disease throughout a person’s life. Usually, this disease is chronic, with the development of pathology in the body, degenerative changes of a sustainable plan occur as a result of the death of brain cells.

The reasons why these processes occur are not fully understood to this day. At this stage, medicine is only able to talk about those factors that directly or indirectly affect the development of Parkinson’s disease. They are considered to be the causes of this disease. In order to more accurately begin to talk about what provokes parkinsonism in a particular case, it is necessary to understand the basis of the pathology and how it affects the processes in the human brain.

Death and damage to dopaminergic cells

Usually, the pathology is manifested by the fact that the composition of the black substance begins to actively change in the midbrain. This substance in the normal state contains cells capable of producing the substance dopamine. Dopamine is necessary for the connection of nerve processes or neurons of the substantia nigra with the striatum of the brain. With a lack of dopamine, there is a violation in the coordination of movements, motor ability decreases, all this progresses until the person completely loses his ability to work and independence. Dopamine synthesis is reduced, and as a result, the neurotransmitter is reducednaya a function by which a person coordinates his own movements.

When dopaminergic cells are damaged or die in the brain, dopamine production drops sharply, which leads to a lack of interaction between the substantia nigra and the striatum in the brain. head human brain. With the loss of 80% of dopaminergic cells, manifest symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. AT dynamics reducing their synthesis in the body, the disease passes to more complex stages.

Experts still cannot answer the question about the causes of damage and doom nerve cells that cause parkinsonism. According to experts at the University of Cambridge, this process may be due to genetic mutations that undermine the natural process of rejection of defective mitochondria. As you know, mitochondria act as a kind of batteries for the cell, destroying and creating energy for them. When defective mitochondria are detected, they need to be eliminated. However, there are defects in the genetic code of Parkinson’s disease that prevent the process of repairing mitochondrial defects. This study suggests that if patients are given medication to remove unnecessary mitochondria during therapy, the development of parkinsonism can be prevented.

Heredity in parkinsonism

According to many studies, it has been found that Parkinson’s disease also has a hereditary cause. If you carefully study the family history, you can identify signs of a gene mutation, although scientists have not yet been able to identify the gene itself. The inheritance patterns of this disease have also not been identified to date, so heredity is still only an assumption in the theory of the development of Parkinson’s disease.

It is believed that the most likely is the autosomal dominant mode of inheritance of parkinsonism. This type suggests that in each generation the manifestation of Parkinson’s disease will be noticeable. However, the likelihood of autosomal recessive inheritance is also high. He says that the disease is inherited through several generations. More often this disease affects men. In order to determine a more accurate inheritance variant, many tests were carried out, as a result of which experts began to doubt the hereditary factor in the onset of the disease in principle. According to the results of the research, it turned out that only 5% of cases of Parkinson’s disease have a related predisposition to the disease.

Genetic predisposition

From the assumptions about the hereditary factor of parkinsonism, the assumption follows that a person is genetically predisposed to this disease. Parkinson himself suffered from this pathology along with several other members of his family. Various studies in different periods of time confirmed the likelihood of a genetic factor as the cause of the disease in the range from 2,5 to 94,5% of all cases of the disease. Such a scatter could not but cause controversy among neurologists around the world regarding the view on the issue under study.

The basis of such disagreements is the fact that parkinsonism syndrome can be part of the clinical picture and other neurological pathologies with a hereditary nature of transmission.

Parkinsonism is detected most often in the elderly, to which not all relatives live.

In addition, in the absence of exogenous factors, some metabolic disorders caused by parkinsonism may not appear at all. Therefore, the use of clinical data to establish a genetic predisposition to Parkinson’s disease does not allow reliable conclusions about the causes of the disease.

Less often in medical circles, you can hear about the recessive type of genetic predisposition to Parkinson’s disease, linked to sex characteristics. However, any studies reveal a genetic predisposition to the disease in no more than 3-8% of cases. At the same time, in the populations of different countries, this regularity turns out to be different. It is important to mention here that in Sweden a pattern of predominance of the so-called 0 blood group in patients with parkinsonism was revealed. The same trend is observed in Norway, but in Finland it is completely absent. Therefore, experts conclude that the possible cause of parkinsonism is the hereditary transmission of a defect in the tyrosine hydroxylase fragment.

brain injury

Even the slightest single brain injury can increase the likelihood of developing neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, as American doctors have repeatedly stated. Neurologists trace the relationship between any concussion and the onset of senile dementia, based on a study of 300 older Americans over 12 years. The data showed that when undergoing brain injuries, patients develop parkinsonism in 71% of all cases of the disease. At the same time, out of 300 case histories, half contained records of the incidence of tuberculosis.

Doctors noted that when suffering a moderate concussion, the risk of developing pathology is about 56%, and when suffering a concussion along with tuberculosis, it is 83%. Experts suggest that concussion reduces the resistance of this body in relation to aging factors. Along with mechanical concussion, depressive states also have a negative impact on the stability of the human brain, which has been proven by Canadian scientists.

Brain diseases

Another factor that can provoke the onset and development of Parkinson’s disease is a number of diseases and their complications in the human brain. Often, after a viral or infectious process in the brain, complications can occur, for example, meningitis, encephalitis, and others. These infectious processes weaken the immune system, can destroy brain cells and, as a result, lead to secondary parkinsonism.

Pathology can be caused by various vascular diseases, for example, atherosclerosis of blood vessels, impaired blood circulation in the body. An important role in the development of Parkinson’s disease can be played by tumors in the brain.

The presence of harmful and lack of useful substances

With severe intoxication in the body, brain tissues are poisoned with toxins, which sometimes also causes a pathological process. The occurrence and development of Parkinson’s disease can be affected by poisoning with manganese, heavy metals, drugs, carbon monoxide and other substances. A vivid example of the occurrence of Parkinson’s disease in young people is the fact that a mass incidence of this disease was detected in 1977 among a group of young people who used synthetic heroin.

There is no direct relationship between the incidence of parkinsonism and alcohol consumption, but in medical circles it is believed that the abuse of alcohol, as well as drugs, provokes the weakening of brain cells and creates a favorable environment for the development of Parkinson’s disease.

Sometimes a disease can be caused not only by the presence of harmful substances in the human body, but also by an insufficient content of useful ones, for example, vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D in the human body is responsible for the formation of a protective barrier aimed at combating free radicals and toxins. Therefore, with its deficiency in old age, all of the above substances freely enter the brain and have a detrimental effect on its cellular structure, which is a prerequisite for the onset of Parkinson’s disease.

Spiritual reasons

In addition to standard medical approaches to the causes of Parkinson’s disease, it is important to remember the psychosomatic factors of the disease. From the point of view of psychosomatics, the disease most often affects those people who are very afraid of not keeping anything in life. This explains the fact that parkinsonism begins to develop from the hands. The disease is more characteristic of those people who constantly restrain themselves in something, hiding their own sensitivity, vulnerability and fears. Indecisive people striving for total control of their own lives are forced to suffer more often from a similar disease, which, as it were, tells the patient that the limit of self-control has already been reached, and from that moment on, a person will no longer be able to control either his own actions or those around him. This happens because the internal tension that the patient has been creating in himself all his life has weakened the nervous system. Parkinson’s disease seems to release this closed negative energy of self-control and indecision.

From the point of view of psychology, at the first signs of parkinsonism, the patient should begin to trust others more, stop constantly comparing himself and other people and worry about the lack of success.

The part of a person that was constantly held back can no longer withstand such tension, and it needs to be given a rest.

Giving himself the right to make mistakes and be imperfect, a person gives the same right to the world around him. Such a perception of reality relaxes the emotional background of a person, allows the accumulated negative energy of fears to come out and stop poisoning the consciousness. Only if the patient can accept himself alive and emotional, he has a chance to stop Parkinson’s disease at any stage of its manifestation.

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