http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15639440

Interesting

very interesting I was diagnosed 3 years ago. My consultant said that I have had PD for several years. My job as a sales rep for about 25 years in the tyre repair industry. i drove an estate car and carried liquid buffer which contained TCE. I used to have to drive with the window as the fumes were very strong. I will be interested to see any more research!

Very interedting!
My husband worked in the printing industry in colour reproduction and they used carbon tetrachloride for a long time before someone stopped them because it caused dizziness in the users.
He developed Parkinsons at 57 after starting work in printing at 15,
At least if this is the cause my kids can stop worrying about it being hereditary!

I don't understand things like this. It is tempting to want to blame chemicals and pollution, but I thought there were descriptions of people suffering from Parkinsons in the bible and many ancient and historical writings. So its not that simple.

My neighbour told me about this today.She said my husband had spent years tinkering under the bonnet of his cars, and maybe that is why he got PD.

My view, for what its worth:

things that have been implicated in triggering pd include:

solvents
manganese
other heavy metals
calcium
nerve viruses
respiratory viruses
other viruses
bacteria
bactreria in the gut
pesticides
trauma
stress
arteries
vitamin d
vitamin b12
etc etc

some genes that are involved
scna
park2
park7
pink1
lrrk2

that's a large number of factors many of which interact with each other, in particular the environmental and genetic factors usually both need to exist for the disease to occur,

i was exposed to solvents when i was a child at my father's workplace (a printer). But i have also had viruse, bacteria, stress, pesticides, manganese.

There is no way yet to seperate out which of these caused my illness, particularly as it is impossible to give a precise date to the start of the illness.

PD might even have more than one begining in an individual ie a genetic likelihood, an initial stimulation and a subsequent accelaration. eg someone may have the park2 mutation, get a virus and then suffer major stress. All are necessary , none are sufficient on its own.

but there is a difference between a trigger and the on-going activity of the disease - presumably many triggers set of a few, possible even one, on-going process that slowly kills off the cells, the on-going process is more important than the complex cause because its too late to stop the cause, as least for us - the on-going process continues long after exposure to solvents etc stops. a process that takes 20 or 30 years must (a dodgy word) be internally self-sustaining.


end of my view

ps not to say that musicman and goldengirl are not correct in their own cases, just to say that its very complicated. in particular the printing industry was very bad in chemical pollution.

Thanks very much for all your comments about the new research which suggests that exposure to the chemical solvent TCE may increase risk of Parkinson's.

You can read more about the study in our web story:

http://www.parkinsons.org.uk/about_us/news/news_items/all_news/chemical_solvent_risk.aspx

This new study is the first one to report a possible link between Parkinson's and TCE, but further larger studies are now needed to confirm the relationship.

We still don't know exactly what causes Parkinson's. But for most people it's likely to be a combination of natural ageing, genetic susceptibility, lifestyle and environmental factors.

So, while TCE may play a small role in Parkinson's in some people, it's probably just a small part of a much bigger puzzle.

I worked in a printing environment which used solvent based inks. I commuted to work which took an 1.5 hours of congested mototway driving every day. I have leaking mercury amalgum fillings in just about every tooth thats left in my head. I have a bone spur nudging my spinal chord. I've clattered my head I don't know how many times.

I'm amazed it took me so long to get PD.

Oh and I had heli-cobactor. I also had stomach pains, gastritis, for years. I had to get chinese herbal medicine for that