Stanford PD Community Blog

Happy new year from Robin, Steven, and Denise at Stanford Parkinson’s Community Outreach!
Our Stanford office is closed from Thursday, Dec 21, reopening on Thursday, January 4.

Excerpt: “‘No one really knows what causes Parkinson’s disease, other than about 10 to 20 percent is genetic,'” said Ted M. Dawson, a professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  Researchers such as Dawson have been searching for clues, and in the last two decades, a growing body of evidence points to an unexpected origin for Parkinson’s disease: the gut.  What is known as the ‘gut-first’ — as opposed to ‘brain-first’— hypothesis states that Parkinson’s begins as abnormal proteins in the nerves of the gastrointestinal tract. Misfolded proteins, found excessively in the post-mortem brains of patients with Parkinson’s as well as Alzheimer’s, accumulate into large, toxic clumps that disrupt nerve cell function.”

Nicolas Hodges has carried on with his career as an eminent interpreter of avant-garde music. But it hasn’t been without sacrifices.