Golf Links to Parkinson's Disease? Dr. Douglas Fields Huffington
Post - In a letter published in the journal Annals of Neurology,
neurologists Margaret Parrish and Robert Gardner suggest a link
between Parkinson's disease and golf. Of 26 patients with
Parkinson's disorder that they collected for their small study
of the disease, it turned out that 19 of them lived on or within
two miles of a golf course. A coincidence perhaps, given the
higher probability of golf courses in communities favored by
senior citizens? The data suggest otherwise: "Sixteen of the 19
patients resided down-wind of a golf course," the researchers
noted. Of the other three patients with Parkinson's living up-
wind of a golf course, two of them had "additional golf course
exposure." Such a small study proves nothing, but it may be an
intriguing clue to tracking down the cause of this debilitating
disease. Parkinson's disease results from the death of specific
neurons deep in the brain, in a region called the substantia
nigra. These neuron