{"id":14389,"date":"2015-02-06T10:55:13","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T16:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/?p=14389"},"modified":"2015-02-09T23:30:49","modified_gmt":"2015-02-10T05:30:49","slug":"blood-test-would-detect-parkinsons-in-early-stages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/blood-test-would-detect-parkinsons-in-early-stages\/","title":{"rendered":"Blood test would detect Parkinson\u2019s in Early Stages"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"parkinson\"A group of researchers developed a blood test that would allow neurologists detect Parkinson’s disease<\/strong> and track the illness as it progresses<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

“If successful, we expect our findings will translate into a valuable diagnostic tool for Parkinson’s disease<\/strong>,”<\/em> said study co-author Judith Potashkin, professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology at Chicago Medical School, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science.<\/p>\n

According to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, it is estimated that 60,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease each year<\/strong>.\u00a0 Data from 2013, by the University Center for Health Sciences (CUCS) at the University of Guadalajara, reported more than 500,000 cases of this neurodegenerative condition in Mexico. The same year, an economic model of Parkinson\u2019s disease<\/strong> forecasted that cases in the world’s population will double by 2040.<\/p>\n

Now days, this disease is still incurable. It can cause tremors and severely hamper movement<\/strong>. Although medications allow controlling the condition, it gets worse over the years and medications do not stop its progression.<\/p>\n

The traditional method to diagnose Parkinson’s is by analyzing symptoms. Currently, brain scans<\/strong> are available, allowing the analysis of imaging studies to detect the disease<\/strong>; however, the information obtained from these devices may still be somewhat imprecise, Potashkin said.<\/p>\n

In their new study, researchers found two genetic markers that are 90 percent effective at indicating the presence of Parkinson’s disease<\/strong>. The markers are related to how the body processes glucose (blood sugar) and insulin<\/strong>, said study lead author Jose Santiago, Associate Research at Chicago Medical School.<\/p>\n

Then, the researchers tracked 101 people with Parkinson’s and 91 healthy people. They found that gene “expression” changed significantly over three years in the Parkinson’s patients.<\/p>\n

The study is still in an early stage; researchers need to perform further studies to confirm the blood test effectiveness<\/strong>, and they also aim to make it more accurate. In addition, they are still not sure how much the test might ultimately cost.<\/p>\n

A first objective is to substantially improve the accuracy of diagnosis of Parkinson through a combined methodology, which includes analysis of symptoms, brain scans and blood tests, Potashkin added. This would allow diagnosing Parkinson’s<\/strong> in early stages and use blood tests to check its progress, and see if drugs take effect since the first moment, she said.<\/p>\n

A blood test to diagnose Parkinson’s<\/strong> would conceivably be “much less expensive and more easily accessible”<\/em> than brain scans, said Julie Andersen, a professor at Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, Calif.<\/p>\n

Dr. Somshuvra Mukhopadhyay, an assistant professor of pharmaceutics at the University of Texas at Austin, called the new study “exciting.” However, he cautioned that “further work is necessary before this becomes a diagnostic and clinical standard.”<\/p>\n

According with the study\u2019s authors, it is not clear whether Parkinson’s causes changes in the genes or if the genes actually contribute to the development of Parkinson’s. The same genes used in this study\u2019s blood tests are also associated with diabetes, and scientists suspect there may be a link between the two diseases.<\/p>\n

“There has been a suggestion from earlier clinical studies that diabetes may be a risk factor for subsequent Parkinson’s development,”<\/em> Andersen said. “It is also possible that Parkinson’s and diabetes share similar underlying causes associated with aging.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The study was published in the Feb. 3 online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.<\/em><\/p>\n

Source:<\/strong> Health Library, Universidad de Guadalajara.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A group of researchers developed a blood test that would allow neurologists detect Parkinson’s disease and track the illness as it progresses. “If successful, we expect our findings will translate into a valuable diagnostic tool for Parkinson’s disease,” said study co-author Judith Potashkin, professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology at Chicago Medical School, Rosalind Franklin …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14416,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15,12],"class_list":["post-14389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-actualidad-en-la-salud","tag-casalud","tag-genomica","cat-3-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14389"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14417,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14389\/revisions\/14417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}