The Michael J. Fox Fox for Parkinson (MJFF) He stood out on Tuesday at a meeting of researchers in New York La loss of smell as one of the first symptoms of the diseasewith the aim of detecting signals and preventing its effects early.
The annual meeting of the organization highlighted the initiative of markers of progression of Parkinson’s disease (PPMI), for its acronym in English), An investigation that has been studied since 2010 this disease and several biomarkers that can indicate their presence in their early stages.
“What is evident is that 90 % of patients (from Parkinson) have lost smell and that this begins before the serious symptoms of the disease, “said Dr. Eduardo Tolosa todaymain researcher at the University of Barcelona and leader of the PPMI.
In 2023, these markers were identified, which are like the ‘Biological and Clinical Footprints’ of Parkinson’s, even in people who had not yet been diagnosed.
Tolosa said that, thanks to these markers -present in the blood or in the skin, among others -the foundation is proposing a “new definition of Parkinson’s disease and a way of follow -up.”
“Parkinson’s cure has failed. There is no treatment that slows or prevents the disease,” The doctor said, who said that the project aims to prevent it through clinical trials of new molecules in patients with minor symptoms.
In this sense, Tolosa insisted that “all clinical trials that have been done in the last 20 years have been in patients with declared disease and have all failed.”
Reduction of the minimum age for tests
The organization It has proposed to reduce the minimum age of eligibility for risk tests from 60 to 40 years, Therefore, it seeks to register for over 40 years with this condition and that are positive in the genetic biomarker to design prevention tests and better understand its early appearance.
“The 60 -year -old court has been used because we knew that from this age the motor manifestation of the disease is more frequent, but we are changing to a pre -engineer paradigm,” explained the neurologist of the Clinical Hospital of Barcelona and deputy director of the program, Alicia Garrido.
In the US, studies also show that the Hispanic or Latin community with Parkinson can present some of the most serious non -motors; However, only 7.6 % participate in research.
In the Digital Platform of the Initiative (‘MyPPMI’), any person over 18 can contribute with health and well -being data from the US, Austria, England, Canada, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands, and from the end of this year it will be expanded to other countries.
Barcelona was one of the first European centers to participate in this project and next week will continue with a new phase that will consist of smell tests in the general population, which pretends to reach all of Spain.
According to the NGO, to date more than 46,000 participants have made about 222,000 visits to the online study, providing information in more than 3.3 million surveys.
