Parkinson's disease is often diagnosed too late, when irreversible damage to the nervous system has already occurred, and doctors only have to deal with the symptoms. Therefore, scientists are looking for solutions for the earliest possible diagnosis, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem proposed such a solution, JPost noted.

According to the proposed method, the disease can be diagnosed 20 years before the onset of visible symptoms. To do this, one need to understand the disorders of the gastrointestinal tract. Scientists were interested in constipation, which, as it turned out, is associated with the patient's neurological status. It is based on a key feature of the disease. In Parkinson's disease, the supply of dopamine cells is depleted, and symptoms, in particular problems with motor skills, appear when many cells have already died.

Constipation is one of the few non-motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease. In fact, constipation is quite common. Therefore, scientists urge to consider it as the main indicator of the disease. The fact is that Lewy bodies accumulate in the area that controls the activity of the gastrointestinal tract. This explains the link between constipation and Parkinson's disease.

An experiment with mice also confirmed this: the mice increased the expression of alpha-synuclein, a specific protein that increases the activity of Lewy bodies in the region of the brain that controls the activity of the gastrointestinal tract. It turned out that due to the overexpression of the protein, the electrical activity of the brain cells decreased.