By: Claire Bale

Published on the NORTHWEST FOUNDATION website

Thanks to the general public's sympathy for Michael J. Fox, Muhammad Ali and, more recently, Bob Hoskins, more and more people have heard of Parkinson's disease. Despite this, the disease remains understood by few.

Apart from tremors, which many associate with Parkinson's disease, the disease makes it very difficult to manage a normal daily lifestyle - when simple tasks like getting out of bed alone become more and more difficult. Anxiety, pain, movement, sleep and speech problems are part of the daily routine of approximately 127000 Parkinson's patients in the UK. Although the impact of the disease is known, what causes its gradual development is much less known.

A new study published today brings us one step closer to the holy grail of Parkinson's disease research - to slow down and even stop the progression of the disease.

EXENATIDE is a drug used to treat diabetes, but this small study has shown real promise that it can help slow the progression of the disease in some people, and has the potential to maintain a good quality of life over time. The beneficial activity of EXENATIDE was described a few years ago following initial research, funded by Parkinson's UK, which showed that the drug might protect dead nerve cells.

The new study shows the drug's potential in moving from the laboratory to Parkinson's patients. Diabetics are at a slightly higher risk of developing Parkinson's disease, and although the reason for this is not clear, anti-diabetic drugs have the potential to treat Parkinson's disease - such is the case with EXENATIDE. Despite these encouraging results, it is too early to determine whether this drug is a dead end or a breakthrough for Parkinson's patients.

The study was conducted on a very small number of people and unfortunately without a negative control group - placebo, which makes it extremely difficult to draw many conclusions from the study.

In the next step, a study should be conducted on a large number of people to examine the effect of EXENATIDE on people with Parkinson's disease - we eagerly await the results of this study.

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Source: ITV NEW