This has enormous implications. Dr. Eric Richfield, a neurologist who worked on the study, said it may mean that no one will ever be able to predict who is at risk of Parkinson's based on exposure to chemicals. There are so many agents and everybody is a little different. Person A may have no reaction to a particular compound. Parkinson's disease, which affects an estimated 500,000 people in the United States alone, is a progressive and incurable disease that involves the destruction of brain cells that produce dopamine, an important message-carrying chemical linked with movement.
Patients start out with tremors and can become paralyzed and die.
There is no cure and treatments can delay the disease for a while but eventually stop working. Perhaps the best-known patient is Pope John Paul II, whose doctor admitted on Wednesday the pontiff had the disease. Actor Michael J. Fox also has Parkinson's, and boxer Muhammed Ali has symptoms of the disease. Researchers suspect that a combinations of genetic vulnerability and exposure to something in the environment may be responsible. One major suspect is organophosphate pesticides, which are known to affect the nervous system.