Body or brain?
The Parkinson’s Foundation’s National Medical Advisor, Michael S. Okun, MD, called the study “fascinating.”
The findings “confirm many other studies showing that GI symptoms can precede a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis,” he said in an interview.
Although the study was designed to test the Braak hypothesis, “the dataset really cannot confirm or refute Braak pathology, which can only be accomplished with comparison to postmortem samples,” he added.
“The raging debate in the field of body-first versus brain-first Parkinson’s may be somewhat artificial, especially if we consider that Parkinson’s is not one disease,” Dr. Okun noted. “It will take clinical data, pathology, and the collaboration of many researchers to solve the puzzle.”
“The Foundation continues to monitor all the advancements in the ‘gut’ Parkinson field,” he said. “We do not recommend at this time changing the approach to clinical care based on this data.”
No funding or competing interests were declared. Dr. Okun declared no relevant disclosures.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.