Increased iron protects against Parkinson's disease

Increasing the level of iron in the body is associated with a reduced risk of developing a serious neurological disease - Parkinson's disease. This is the conclusion, researchers from the European Academy of Bozen / Bolzano in Italy.

Parkinson's disease

Using so-called Mendelian randomization technique, scientists from Italy have decided to evaluate the dependence of the level of iron in the body of its risk of being   Parkinson's disease . They relied on three polymorphisms (presence within one species sharply differing in appearance species) in two genes - HFE and TMPRSS6.

In total, to the attention of scientists got 22 thousand people from Europe and Australia. To calculate the risk using meta-analysis, as victims of Parkinson's disease and healthy people. According to the results of a study published in the journal PLOS Medicine, increasing the level of iron in the blood is associated with reduced risk of Parkinson's disease   3%.

Data from this study are important because they suggest that iron levels have a protective effect against one of the most serious neurological illnesses. Parkinson's disease is still incurable. Progresses, it causes a tremor of limbs, facial expressions and binds significantly complicates the life of man.

Medicine does not know ways to treat Parkinson's disease, levodopa but in many cases, can hinder the development of the disease. The victims of Parkinson's disease were Soviet comedian Arkady Raikin and Pope John Paul II. From disease to suffer the actor Michael J. Fox and boxer Muhammad Ali. (READ MORE)

Treatment and prevention

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