Steroids: Scientists examine controversial substance's potential to treat Parkinson's

Steroids could be used to treat a debilitating disease that affects thousands in Wales today.

Researchers at a university in Wales have highlighted the controversial substances positive side after discovering two steroid type molecules that could treat Parkinsons disease.

Professor William J Griffiths and Dr Yuqin Wang at Swansea Universitys Institute of Mass Spectrometry, both experts in identifying biomolecules, believe the find could lead to some of Parkinsons effects being reversed using regenerative medicine.

The cruel disease has affected boxing legend Muhammad Ali and actor Bob Hoskins, who last year announced he was ending his career because of Parkinsons.

The brain condition, with symptoms including tremors, mood changes, movement difficulties, loss of smell and speech problems, affects almost 130,000 people in the UK.

Later, cognitive and behavioural problems may arise as the disease takes hold, with dementia commonly occurring in its advanced stages.

Parkinsons motor symptoms result from the death of dopamine-generating cells in the substantia nigra, a region of the mid-brain.

The two Swansea researchers working with the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, have now identified two steroid-type molecules that play an important role in the survival and production of nerve cells in the mid-brain.

The discovery has been published online in the international journal Nature Chemical Biology and may prove significant in the treatment of several diseases as well as Parkinsons.

Dr Wang said: The first molecule we found, cholic acid, influences the production and survival of neurons in what is known as the red nucleus, important for incoming signals from other parts of the brain.

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Steroids: Scientists examine controversial substance's potential to treat Parkinson's