NEUROLOGICAL
HEALTH
"Parkinson’s attacks the mind, body, and the spirit. Hope treats all three."
- Gordon Adai
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder. One out of every 100 people over the age of 60 develops PD, a number which will only rise as the average life span increases. [1]
Symptoms of Parkinson’s
Many signs of Parkinson’s disease are commonly recognized and visible to other people. These include tremors, slowed movement, muscle rigidity, problems with posture and balance. Other symptoms are less evident. Constipation and anxiety that are related to PD can begin occurring years before other symptoms appear.
Limited treatments exist, which target symptoms of the disease, but there is currently no cure available.
The first PS128 clinical study of Parkinson’s patients has been published and is summarized below. These positive results, along with earlier preclinical research, give us optimism that PS128 can benefit many who are suffering from the disease.
PS128 + Levodopa
(Taiwan, 2021)
Study Summary
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Type: open-label, single-arm, baseline-controlled
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Location: Professor Lu Neurological Clinic, Taiwan
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Participants: 25 patients with PD, ages 52-72, female and male
Participants took a nightly dose of PS128 for 12 weeks. Disease severity and progression were compared before and after the trial using the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), changes in each patient’s “ON-OFF” diary records, and the Parkinson’s Disease Questionnaire (PDQ-39.) Patients self-assessed their overall change using the Patient Global Impression of Change (PGI-C) following the study.
Results
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ON-state UPDRS-III total and OFF-state total and akinesia scores significantly improved
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More than 2/3 of patients felt improvement while taking PS128
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Taking PS128 significantly reduced MPO, an enzyme that plays an important role in the development of PD and other neurodegenerative diseases
of UPDRS-III and PDQ-39 categories improved
100%
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The following PDQ-39 scores improved significantly:
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Total score
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Mobility
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Activities of daily living
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Stigma
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Cognition
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Patient-recorded ON- and OFF-state durations improved significantly
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No adverse events were recorded during the study.
Ongoing PS128 Research
PS128's potential to attenuate PD symptoms is now being studied in a larger randomized control trial on patients with Parkinson's.
Other Signs of
Parkinson's Disease
A study published in 2016 comparing 197 Parkinson’s patients and 130 healthy individuals from around the US discovered the gut flora of these two groups differed significantly in both the type of microbe species and their proportions. This suggests that an imbalance in gut microbes is a possible risk factor for PD, and that regulating intestinal flora might be one way to treat or even prevent the disease.
[1] GBD 2017 Disease and Injury Incidence and Prevalence Collaborators. (2018). Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 354 diseases and injuries for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017. The Lancet.
More PS128 clinical data