15 May

Parkinson’s Disease is approaching epidemic levels. One of the less known things about Covid (SARS-Cov-2) infection is that it’s a potent accelerant for Parkinson’s. The virus attacks the cells that produce dopamine, and Parkinson’s is heavily characterised by a lack of dopamine (most sufferers take drugs to try to counteract this). Then along came the Gliptins, the ‘weight loss’ drugs I often post about. Ozempic, Mounjaro etc. As you can see here initial testing stunned everybody. It’s suspected the power of the Gliptins against inflammation more generally helps protect the neurons in the brain that produce dopamine as well. Incidentally this is why my Covid specialist friend had me taking Metformin when I caught Covid. Metformin also protects the dopamine neurons in the brain. It’s another diabetes drug. (I don’t have diabetes.) This also matches a real paradigm shift emerging in the treatment of chronic disease, and also of infection. Chronic disease is often caused by long-term infection effects, and much disease in general can be linked to inflammation. Rather than try to treat the ongoing infection, which is near impossible, instead target the inflammation the infection causes. It’s the inflammation which is the likely cause of the disease, also for other diseases without infectious origin. The Gliptins seem miraculous because they’re both anti-inflammatory, and also boost the immune system in critical ways.