By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

Parkinson’s disease is second only to Alzheimer’s as the most common neurological illness in the United States, and its symptoms — rigidity, imbalance and uncontrollable shaking — are all too familiar. By the time James Parkinson formally described it in 1817, the illness had been known for centuries.

When The New York Times first mentioned the ailment, on April 5, 1858, it followed Dr. Parkinson’s example, calling it “chronic shaking palsy” in a roundup of news from Long Island. A man suffering from the disease, the report said, was baptized at a church in Brooklyn and the presiding minister “observed to him on his immersion: ‘In the highest and best of senses the Lord Jesus, my brother, healeth thee of all thy diseases.’ ”

Sometimes, presumably when the context required more formality, The Times used the medical term for the illness, “paralysis agitans” — for example, in a report about Civil War pensions published April 2, 1894.

The newspaper used “Parkinson’s disease” for the first time on Sept. 25, 1918, when it published a vivid account of the divorce proceedings of Charles S. Mellen, a former president of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company. Mr. Mellen’s lawyer asked for a delay because his client was “suffering from Parkinson’s disease, for which he was taking electrical treatments.” It is safe to say that those treatments were no more or less effective than the Brooklyn baptism.

The disease was mentioned again on Jan. 2, 1928, this time with some poignancy. “Sir Henry Head, the neurologist,” the special cable began, “has fallen victim to the mysterious, incurable disease on which he possibly is the greatest living authority — the form of creeping paralysis known as Parkinson’s disease.” Sir Henry died of the illness in 1940.

In the mid-1930s, the name Parkinson’s disease was still not common, and almost always required explanation. In an obituary on Feb. 22, 1935, for example, The Times wrote that a man “had suffered from the chronic progressive nerve ailment known as Parkinson’s disease.”

But if the name was still obscure to the general public, it was no mystery to people engaged in insurance fraud. On Oct. 14, 1936, The Times reported that a man had been arrested for falsely collecting $60,000 in disability insurance payments by pretending that “he had been stricken with a form of paralysis known as Parkinson’s disease.”

On Aug. 16, 1942, The Times printed a report about students at Western Reserve University who, as part of the war effort, were growing plants from which scopolamine could be derived. The drug, previously imported but unobtainable since the start of the war, was used “in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease” — a reference that by then could be made without explanation. The article was published with a photograph of six young women in short skirts lined up facing the camera, each brandishing a hoe and performing what appears to be an act of synchronized gardening.

Yet the term “shaking palsy” persisted until its last appearance in The Times as a synonym for Parkinson’s disease in an Associated Press dispatch on Nov. 3, 1983. Jane E. Brody mentioned the term in an article in 1985, but then only to mark its historical importance.

After that, a search for “Parkinson’s disease” in The Times database yields more than 2,400 entries, and “shaking palsy” yields but one. On Jan. 2, 2005, an article about the rare-book collection of the New York Academy of Medicine mentioned one of its prize possessions: an original 1817 copy of “An Essay on the Shaking Palsy,” by James Parkinson. NICHOLAS BAKALAR

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Also check out the New York Times Health Guide on Parkinson’s disease by clicking here.

Enjoying food and martinis at the inaugural Shakin’ BUT NOT Stirred, October 2009

Who will be attending the 2nd annual Shakin’ BUT NOT Stirred martini night and silent auction on Friday, Oct. 1 from6-9pm at Chaps restaurant, Spokane? Dinner, martinis, dance music and a silent auction. It’s bigger and better than last year.

Tickets go on sale next week, but you can pre-purchase yours by calling (509) 473-2490.

On Monday August 2, the Tremble Clefs had their 2nd Annual Picnic while celebrating the 5th Anniversary of the founding of the group. The weather was nice, the food was good, and the companionship and camaraderie, as usual, was great! The co-founders of the group Sara Nielsen and Ruth Palnick, were honored with a carrot cake decorated with their photos, musical notes, and of course, Parky. The group is on summer break now until Tuesday, September 7. See Walter Jakubowski’s Facebook page for an album of photos of the event.

Or more likely, I pointed out, his expressions are masked by Parkinson’s disease, and that slow movement is Bradykinesia.

According to the National Parkinson’s Disease Foundation approx 1 in 272, or 1 million people in USA are currently living with a diagnosis of PD. Onset of symptoms are more common in those people over the age of 60, but a disturbing trend in recent years has been the increasing number of people whose onset begins between the ages of 21 and 40 called “Young On-set Parkinson’s Disease” or YOPD.

Those 20-somethings might do well to consider that they aren’t exempt from contracting PD at some point in their lifetime.

Doesn’t sound like a big deal, you say?

We use rubber bands every day to bundle booklets and other items for mailing. Same with binder clips and paper clips.  Buying them adds up.

So Stefano…You Are Awesome!

Low Vitamin D Levels May Heighten Risk for Parkinson’s Disease

Allison Gandey

July 15, 2010 — In the first longitudinal analysis of its kind, investigators have identified a link between vitamin D and Parkinson’s disease. Using a cohort of more than 3000 people, researchers found that low vitamin D levels increased the risk for Parkinson’s, and high rates appeared to have a protective effect.

The preliminary findings appear in the July issue of the Archives of Neurology.

“This study was carried out in Finland, an area with restricted sunlight exposure,” noted researchers led by Paul Knekt, DPH, from the National Institute for Health and Welfare in Helsinki, Finland. It is a population that typically has low vitamin D levels. The mean serum level was about 50% of the suggested optimal level of 75 to 80 nmol/L, the authors explained.

“Vitamin D is no longer considered a vitamin, but rather a hormone that has autocrine and paracrine functions well beyond those of regulating calcium absorption and bone health,” Marian Leslie Evatt, MD, from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, said in an accompanying editorial.

“The association with and possible causal role of insufficient vitamin D in many chronic diseases is becoming more widely appreciated yet what constitutes an optimal blood concentration of vitamin D for humans, and specifically for the human nervous system, remains unknown,” she noted.

To investigate the possible association between vitamin D and Parkinson’s, investigators studied a large cohort from the Mini-Finland Health Survey, drawn from the population register. During the 29-year follow-up period, there were 50 incident cases of Parkinson’s disease.

Researchers determined serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels using frozen samples stored at baseline. They estimated the relationship between vitamin D concentration and Parkinson’s disease using a Cox model.

The investigators found that individuals with a serum vitamin D concentration of at least 50 nmol/L had a 65% lower risk for Parkinson’s than those with values less than 25 nmol/L after adjustment for several potential confounders. The relative risk between the highest and lowest vitamin D levels was 0.35 (95% confidence interval, 0.15 – 0.81; P = .006).

Despite the overall low vitamin D levels in the study population, the researchers also identified a dose-response relationship.

Preliminary Findings

The exact mechanisms by which vitamin D may protect against Parkinson’s disease are not fully understood. Vitamin D has, however, been shown to exhibit neuroprotective effects through antioxidative mechanisms, neuronal calcium regulation, immunomodulation, enhanced nerve conduction, and detoxification mechanisms.

The investigators acknowledge the finding could be a result of residual confounding, and further studies are needed.

Asked by Medscape Medical News to comment, William Weiner, MD, director of the Maryland Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Center in Baltimore, said he agrees that more study is warranted.

“It seems like every time I turn around, I’m reading another association study in the field of neurology,” Dr. Weiner said. “We’re being told we need more of this or less of something else. Patients tend to get excited about these findings, but we need to be very cautious because most will not turn out.”

Dr. Weiner said he agrees such studies should be conducted and published, but he says the caveats must be emphasized. “It’s important we let people know how early these investigations are.”

The researchers, Dr. Evatt, and Dr. Weiner have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

Arch Neurol. 2010;67:808-811.