How a Healthy Diet Helps Reduce Risk of Parkinson’s Disease
More research is needed to find out whether a ‘healthy diet could delay or even prevent’ Parkinson’s disease from developing among individuals who already have the initial symptoms.
Managing the symptoms of Parkinson's disease is quite a challenge whether you or a loved one is diagnosed with this neurodegenerative order.
According to ParkinsonsDisease.net, with around 50,000 people being diagnosed with the disease in the United States each year, thousands of people "are just beginning to learn what to expect."
The website also said individuals have just begun to learn the things they need to avoid and what to eat to manage Parkinson's properly.
Eating the right kinds of foods, along with medications and a healthy lifestyle, can help you or a loved one manage Parkinson's symptoms such as tremors, rigidity, and postural instability, to name some, for the improvement of quality of life.
Healthy Eating in Middle Age
A new study published in Neurology's August 19, 2020, online issue suggests the practice of healthy eating in middle age may be associated with having lesser of the initial symptoms.
According to Boston, Massachusetts-based Havard University's Samantha Molsberry, Ph.D., the study author, while this research does not present cause and effect, it definitely "provides yet another reason for including more nuts, legumes, and vegetables in one's diet."
Despite their proposition, added Molsberry, more research is needed to find out whether a "healthy diet could delay or even prevent" Parkinson's disease from developing among individuals who already have the initial symptoms.
The research involved 47,679 participants. Every four years since the 1980s, the said respondents had been asked every four years about their diet during their middle age.
Then in 2012, the study indicates, the same participants were asked "if they had to conditions" commonly experienced by people who are diagnosed with Parkinson's disease later.
The conditions being referred to were constipation and sleep disorder, also known as "rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder."
Then, from 2014 to 2015, more than 17,000 of the participants were asked if they experienced five more symptoms that could precede Parkinson's disease. These symptoms included impaired color vision, loss of sense of smell, oversleeping at daytime, depression, and body aches.
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Research Findings of Diet
The study authors looked at how closely diets of people followed either the substitute Mediterranean diet or the Alternative Healthy Eating Index.
Both diets, results indicate, encourage consumption of "fruit, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and nuts," and discourage red meat consumption. Participants were divided into five groups according to their close following of the diets.
As a result, the study found that participants with the strictest adherence to diets were less likely to have at least three symptoms preceding Parkinson's disease than those who have the most lenient adherence.
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How Diet Helps Ease Symptoms of Parkinson's Disease
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, "Following a balanced diet improves general well-being and boosts," an individual's ability to alleviate symptoms of Parkinson's disease.
Eating generous servings of foods like fruits and vegetables and lean protein, legumes, and beans, among others, and keeping hydrated is among the significant ways for one to stay active and generally healthy.
Three of the conditions diet contributes to when it comes to the alleviation of Parkinson's disease include constipation, dehydration, and medication interaction.
People with Parkinson's disease suffer constipation because of a slowdown of the digestive system. To address this issue, Johns Hopkins Medicine said, a patient should have a fiber-rich diet, which includes a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and cereals, among others.
For dehydrations, typically, medications for the treatment of the disease can dry one out. As a result, dehydration can make not only more tired in time but also result in confusion, weakness and balance issues, and kidney problems. To address this, a patient must drink plenty of fluids all day.
Lastly, carbidopa-levodopa, the drug most typically use for the treatment of Parkinson's disease, is absorbed in the small intestine.
Such absorption can be disrupted if the medicine is taken shortly following the consumption of a high-protein meal as it involves a similar process.
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Sep 08, 2020 07:51 AM EDT
