Fox is the latest in a series of famous people who have gone public. Attorney General Janet Reno, the pope, evangelist Billy Graham, and country singer Johnny Cash have all acknowledged they also struggle with Parkinson's, which affects over one and a half million Americans. Dr. Allan Ropper is chairman of the neurology department at Tufts University in Boston. The Parkinson's Disease is a degeneration or loss of very particular cells deep in the brain that leads to a reduction in the amount of dopamine, which is a chemical required for cells to signal to each other. When dopamine is not produced in enough quantity, cells cannot signal each other properly.
Patients develop muscle tremor, slowness or rigidity of movement, and instability in walking.
Generally, Parkinson's patients deteriorate over a long period of time, perhaps ten to twenty years, and, in a weakened condition, many die from complications. But Dr. Ropper, who is Michael J. Fox's doctor, says that there is cause for optimism. There are procedures. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association said the majority of cases of Parkinson's Disease in people over the age of 50 seemed to be caused by exposure to unknown chemicals in the environment. But the researchers say a defective gene may still be the cause in less than 10 percent of all cases, in those patients under the age of 50.