In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Adina Wise discuss the complexities of Parkinson’s disease, including its causes, symptoms, and the role of environmental factors, such as air pollution. They discuss who Parkinson’s primarily affects, the genetic factors at play, the higher incidents in specific regions, and the increase in the frequency of Parkinson’s cases. They also talk about the recent advancements including continuous infusion therapy and stress that early detection is crucial, though challenging due to ethical considerations.

Key Takeaways:

• Movement disorders are one of the few areas of medicine where diagnosis continues to rely heavily on careful observation.

• Parkinson’s is a heterogeneous disorder, not a single disease. Every case is a little different with the well-known motor symptoms - such as tremors, stiffness, and slowness, but also equally important non-motor symptoms - like sleep disturbances, mood changes, cognitive impairment, and more.

• Parkinson’s mostly appears in people over the age of 60. For early-onset Parkinson’s (before the age of 50) accounts for about 4-10% of all cases. In these early-onset cases, there tends to be a stronger genetic influence.

• The number one thing you can do to keep your brain healthy right now is regular aerobic exercise.

"Environmental factors, genes, lifestyle - these all may influence whether Parkinson’s manifests. This makes the Parkinson’s genetics quite complicated." — Dr. Adina Wise

Connect with Dr. Adina Wise:

Professional Bio: https://profiles.mountsinai.org/adina-wise

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adinawise

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/awise.md/

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Threads: @critically_speaking

Email: theresemarkow@criticallyspeaking.net

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