Cape Town - A local expert on Parkinson’s disease has called for more indigenous research on the complex nervous system disorder after it emerged that genetic causes of the disease in South Africans may be different from those in overseas patients.
Professor Soraya Bardien, a senior scientist with the Parkinson’s Disease Research Group at Stellenbosch University, warned that the genetic defects causing the debilitating disease in most South African patients differed from those found in European, American and Asian populations and that drug treatments developed overseas might not be applicable here.
One of the findings the group made was on a novel genetic defect in one South African patient. When comparing the genetic defects in the same gene in populations overseas, the results showed that the novel defect had more severe effects on the cell.
Bardien said as a result of this information, there was a need to develop home-grown treatment modalities to cure the disease in South Africa rather than relying on overseas medical breakthroughs.
“More research is urgently needed on South African patients to understand the unique aspects of the disease affecting local populations.
“Because our populations are unique, our genetic causes of the disease would be unique. That is why we should focus on our own research because the breakthroughs overseas may not be applicable to our local populations,” she said.
Bardien said the uniqueness of South African populations, such as the “Afrikaners and coloureds” may be the reason the local population was different from the rest of the world genetically.
The disease is receiving attention today because April 11 was World Parkinson’s Disease Day.
The disease, popularly known for its incapacitating effects, is an incurable disorder that results from the loss of brain cells or neurons in a specific part of the brain known as the “substantia nigra”.
These cells never grow back and result in symptoms that include stiff muscles, extremely slow movements and reflexes, involuntary trembling of the body and limbs and difficulty in maintaining balance.
The Parkinson’s Disease Research Group is the only group in South Africa investigating the genetic causes and mechanisms that lead to the disease. One of the research projects of the group was finding a cure for Parkinson’s.
Bardien said there was a growing body of research that showed that curcumin (the active ingredient in turmeric, a common household spice) had therapeutic benefits in the treatment of the disease. This was one of the treatment modalities being investigated by the group.
Bardien, who has been conducting research on Parkinson’s disease for eight years, said it was important to raise awareness of this disorder because it might be misdiagnosed and therefore not treated appropriately.
“Patients with PD may also be stigmatised and other factors, such as witchcraft, may be blamed for the symptoms.
“Therefore, it needs to be highlighted that this is a disorder like hypertension and schizophrenia, and that treatment exists that can alleviate many of the devastating symptoms,” she said.
Cape Argus