Diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease?

Parkinson’s Disease is a progressive disorder that includes a range of debilitating symptoms. Many of these symptoms are due to the loss of neurons that produce a chemical messenger in the brain called dopamine. This leads to motor deficits and contribute to symptoms such as tremors, stiffness, or slowness of movement. As a progressive disorder, these symptoms become severe with age. Age-related vascular degeneration occurs simultaneously, due to the brain losing its ability to build small blood vessels such as capillaries, this contributes to cognitive deficits resulting in symptoms such as dementia, disrupted sleep and compromised mood.

While there is still a lot unknown regarding the causes of neuronal degeneration in Parkinson’s, there is a growing body of evidence that suggests insufficient IGF-1 levels in Parkinson’s patients contribute to the progression of the disease.  Low/insufficient levels of IGF-1 impacts the body’s ability to make new blood vessels leading to vascular degeneration. Restoring the ability to build new blood vessels offers an opportunity to reverse vascular degeneration and slow the progress of Parkinson’s Disease.

The role of cGP in Parkinson’s is highlighted in a study by Dr. Jian Guan which showed that increased cGP with age is associated with better cognition in Parkinson’s, whereas those who had low cGP levels had impaired cognition. These results also suggest that cGP supplementation could be beneficial in supporting symptom management in Parkinson’s patients as well as in slowing the progress of the disease.