Exercise Might Protect Against Parkinson's Disease

From Yahoo! News:

In research with rats, University of Pittsburgh scientists found that exercising limbs helps protect brain cells that are normally damaged or destroyed by Parkinson's disease.

Based on that finding, the researchers have started a small pilot study to examine if exercise has an impact on the progression of Parkinson's in people who have the disease.

In people with Parkinson's, brain cells that contain dopamine progressively die until only a small percentage of such cells remain. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that's essential in muscle control. The loss of dopamine results in typical symptoms of Parkinson's: stooped posture, limb rigidity, slow movements and uncontrollable tremors.

In this study, rats were forced to exercise for seven days before they were give a toxin designed to induce Parkinson's disease. Another group of rats that did no exercise also received the toxin.

In the rats that were exercised, there was significantly less death of dopamine-containing brain cells than in the rats that hadn't been exercised.

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