Drug Could One Day Treat Parkinson's

ATLANTA Scientists at Georgia Health Sciences University in Augusta have identified a drug that could one day be a potent treatment for Parkinsons disease.

The research used a new kind of antioxidant to prevent the diseases development.

Neuroscientist Bobby Thomas and his colleagues targeted a substance in the body called Nrf2 that fights oxidative stress and inflammation. They used powerful new antioxidants to keep Nrf2 from degrading so it can trigger genes that control that inflammatory response.

Basically, it can prevent the induction of oxidative stress and also exacerbated inflammation, which we clearly see in Parkinsons, Thomas said.

Thomas says patients with Parkinsons have an overload of this oxidative stress and the bodys response inflammation which can lead to the death of brain cells that produce dopamine. So by regulating that response with the new drugs, they were able to prevent development of the disease in animal models.

The researchers tested the drugs on cells that developed Parkinsons-like damage within days in the lab. Now theyre testing them on animal models that are genetically programmed to develop the disease more slowly, like humans do.

Thomas says its the first time this new class of antioxidants has been tested on Parkinsons-like brain damage.

These drugs have been tested on other diseases, such as diabetes, and people have tested them in models of multiple sclerosis and Huntingtons disease, Thomas said. But in Parkinsons, clearly this is the first use of these antioxidants.

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Drug Could One Day Treat Parkinson's