For the first time, researchers have found a way to definitively
identify Parkinson's disease. This may lead to an easy diagnostic test and a way to track its progression more scientifically.
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"Metabolomics" is the study of molecules thrown off by the body's many metabolic processes. The idea is that specific diseases cause typical changes in the body -- and have a unique metabolomic profile, suggests study researcher M. Flint Beal, MD, chairman and professor of neurology at Weill Cornell Medical Center. Using state-of-the-art screening, Beal and colleagues first compared unmedicated Parkinson's patients to control patients. Then they used the resulting profile to test 66 Parkinson's patients and 25 control patients. "We discovered a clear differentiation between the metabolomic profiles of Parkinson's disease patients versus those of the controls," Beal says in a news release. "No one molecule was definitive, but a pattern of compounds emerged that was highly specific to Parkinson's patients."
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