How Antioxidants Affect Parkinson's Disease

Neuroprotective Therapies like Antioxidants Might Slow Disease Progress

If you have Parkinson's disease and are looking for treatments beyond dopamine, you've probably heard of neuroprotective therapies. Traditional drug therapy for PD is effective in managing symptoms of PD but the traditional drugs do not prevent PD, cure PD or even slow down progression of the disease.

Neuroprotective therapies hold promise for slowing progression of the disease because they can protect the cells that produce dopamine. A few of the available neuroprotective therapies are more commonly known as "antioxidants."

Currently, the following antioxidants are sometimes used as part of a treatment plan for PD patients: vitamins and coenzyme Q₁₀.

What Are Antioxidants?

First, let's explain what it means when something is an antioxidant. One of the major causes of damage to dopamine producing cells (neurons) is something called oxidative stress. When the body and brain uses oxygen in its metabolic systems the process produces very small molecules known as "free radicals." When these free radicals accumulate in the brain they can damage brain cells. Dopamine neurons are particularly sensitive to oxidative stress because the metabolism of dopamine generates very high levels of these free radicals. Antioxidants eat up these free radicals and therefore stop the damage they cause.

The good news is that certain foods, like green leafy vegetables, whole grains, dark fruits and nuts, contain lots of antioxidants.

Which Antioxidants Are Currently Part of a Recommended Treatment Plan for PD Patients?

Vitamins C and E are natural antioxidants. One of their main jobs in the body is to eat up free radicals. Researchers, therefore, have significant interest in developing vitamin based neuroprotective therapies for PD. Some studies have found that high doses of vitamin C and E could delay the need for symptomatic medication by 2.5 years in early PD. A large-scale clinical trial of Vitamin E, however, failed to find any significant protective effect for vitamin E (atocopherol) in PD. While the jury is still out with respect to vitamins slowing progression of the disease, there is no doubt that vitamins are good for the PD nervous system. Everyone with PD needs to maintain recommended daily levels of vitamins and minerals.

One of the main regions in a cell that produces free radicals as well as systems to scavenge up those free radicals is the mitochondrial complex. CoQ₁₀ or ubiquinone is a molecule that participates in mitochondrial metabolic work and is therefore crucial to the fate of free radicals in the body and brain. Some studies have shown that doses of 1200 mg/day of CoQ₁₀ could slow down the progression of PD. Again the jury is out with respect to protective effects of CoQ₁₀ but many PD specialists are beginning to recommend CoQ₁₀ supplements for some of their patients.

If you are considering taking supplements like vitamins and CoQ₁₀ you should speak to your doctor first as high doses of these substances can be harmful in some cases.

_Sources:

A. Taulous and A. Sullivan. “Progress in Parkinson’s Disease—Where Do We Stand?” Progress in Neurobiology 85 (2008): 376-392.