Parkinson's Disease with guest Ray Dorsey, MD

And I wanted to really start with very, very basic questions to get into what we're going to, you know, move through.

So the first question really I want to start with is really what is Parkinson's disease for people who are listening and how is it, you know, how does it manifest and, you know, what are the basics of its mechanisms and also anatomy in terms of where it affects human health?

So at a high level, Parkinson's disease is...

A neurological condition characterized by a tremor, usually in the hand, one hand, usually in the hand, usually one hand more, other usually at rest.

Slowness and movement, everything takes longer to do.

Stiffness or rigidity and difficulties with walking or balance.

If you have two of those following four features, preceding four features, you have Parkinsonism and the most likely cause of that is a disease called Parkinson's disease.

to what is this disease.

The disease was largely rare and not in the medical textbooks when Dr. Parkinson saw something new on the streets of London in 1870.

And he saw people with a tremor, which he said had long since been described.

But this tremor, this stooped posture, this tendency to walk forward faster and faster and to fall forward, he said that was new, not described, not classified in medical literature.

He described six people with this novel condition on the streets of London.

200 years later, it's estimated that over 6 million people have the disease.

So our work has been really trying to understand why didn't you go from a disease that was rare, not described in medical literature, affecting six people on the streets of London, to one? to the world's fastest-growing brain disease, 200 years later, affecting 6 million people.

And I think the principal reasons are not what we were taught in medical school.

We were taught, you know, it's going to be genetics.

This is a natural consequence of aging.

Maybe there's a bay of luck.

And maybe if we were fortunate, we heard a word about pesticides.

But I think we'll discuss the principal causes of Parkinson's disease are not within us, they're not in our DNA.

And this is not a natural consequence of aging.

It's an unnatural consequence of aging.

The principal causes of disease are chemicals in our food, water, and air.

And if we address these chemicals in our food, water, and air, we create a world without Parkinson's disease, just like 99.9% of human history has largely been free of this disease.

And you said that it's one of the, it is the largest or fastest growing neurologic condition.