With no known cure for Parkinson’s disease, research suggests that exercise is one of the most effective ways to slow its progression.
“Exercise may be more than just good for your general health, as it can actually help slow the progression of Parkinson's by reducing the brain inflammation at the root of the disease,” said Merrill Landers, interim dean for UNLV’s School of Integrated Health Sciences and a practicing physical therapist for the past 30 years.
Parkinson’s disease — a neurodegenerative disorder most commonly diagnosed between ages 55 and 65 — affects movement, sleep, cognition, and even control of your bladder.
This means for someone over the age of 60, a slight tremor in the hand, slowness of movement, or a loss of smell can signal a greater issue to address.
“Until a cure is found, one of the biggest goals in Parkinson's research is finding a treatment that can actually slow or stop the disease,” Landers said. “One of the most promising candidates for slowing progression is aerobic exercise, which is the focus of my current research.”
With research funding from the Cyrus Tang Foundation, Landers has spent decades working with people with Parkinson’s disease as a practicing clinician. As part of his research, Landers and a small group of students from UNLV’s physical therapy department work with people who have Parkinson’s disease, guiding them through exercise at different aerobic intensities. They then collect blood samples from these sessions to help understand what amounts and levels of exercise may be most effective for people living with Parkinson’s.
The Importance (and Benefits!) of Exercise
Exercise acts as "fertilizer for the brain," Landers said. It generates an increase in brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a protein that promotes the survival and growth of neurons.
“BDNF also dials down inflammation throughout the body and brain by triggering the release of anti-inflammatory signals from muscles and tissues during exercise,” Landers said.
While inflammation is critical to the body’s immune system, too much inflammation can damage otherwise healthy tissue.
Simply put, inflammation accelerates the death of neurons, but an increase in aerobic exercise decreases your resting inflammatory state.
Landers recommends any form of sustained aerobic exercise — treadmill walking, cycling, dancing, or any other activity that gets your heart pumping.
He recommends exercising at a moderate but challenging intensity; hard enough to speak in short sentences, but not easy enough that holding a full conversation feels effortless. This sweet spot, roughly 60%-75% of your maximum heart rate, produces the biggest boost in BDNF.
“You want to be in this intensity zone so that you can sustain it over a relatively long time,” he said. “If the exercise is too intense, you would not be able to do it long enough to get the boost in BDNF.”
Brach Poston, a kinesiology and nutrition sciences professor, said there are benefits to strength training, interval training, and even boxing. His research focuses on the use of non-invasive brain stimulation to improve motor skill learning in Parkinson’s disease, aging, and young adults.
“Boxing involves more complex movements,” he said. “It has an aerobic component and it has more interval training. It forces people to stand up, and it challenges their balance.”
As symptoms start to interfere with daily activities, people with Parkinson’s disease are recommended to take Levodopa, which helps to increase dopamine levels in the brain.
“For most people, it takes about six years after diagnosis before the symptoms get really bad,” Poston said.
More About Parkinson’s
Actor Michael J. Fox's experience has raised awareness for Parkinson’s disease. Fox was diagnosed with the disease at 29, a rarity for Parkinson’s. Now, at 64, he still lives with Parkinson’s but experiences dyskinesias, which are involuntary and erratic movements.
“Bringing more attention to Parkinson’s is a good thing,” said Merrill Landers of UNLV’s School of Integrated Health Sciences. “It not only brings more people into the conversation, but we hope it ultimately leads to more funding for research that could change lives.”
Parkinson’s disease is a progressive disorder of the nervous system that slows the brain’s process of several different neurotransmitter systems, including dopamine, a chemical that helps to control movement.
The Statistics on Parkinson's
- Most diagnoses occur between the ages of 55 and 65.
- It affects 1.1 million Americans every year, including 90,000 new diagnoses annually.
- It only affects 1% of individuals over the age of 60, but it is the fastest-growing neurodegenerative disorder in the U.S.
- 10-20% are diagnosed with early onset Parkinson’s under the age of 50. Only 2% are diagnosed before 40.
- Age of a diagnosis plays a critical role in determining quality of life afterward, with young onset having a faster progression and being more susceptible to the long-term erosion of movement control, also known as dyskinesias.
Parkinson’s Symptoms
- Earliest pre-diagnosis symptoms of Parkinson’s disease include constipation, R.E.M. sleep behavior disorder, excessive daytime fatigue, depression, and loss of smell.
- 96% of newly diagnosed individuals with Parkinson’s have had their sense of smell altered.
- Constipation and the loss of smell are typically noticeable before the motor symptoms occur.
- People with Parkinson’s disease have already lost about 70% of their dopamine-producing neurons before they get more overt motor symptoms.
- Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s both have motor and cognitive symptoms, with Parkinson’s having more motor-related problems than cognitive. Conversely, Alzheimer’s has more cognitive problems than motor.
