More than 1000 people took part in the international study. These include people diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and people with genetic risk factors. In addition, pre-ill people were examined who suffer from sleep disorders or loss of smell, for example. These can be early signs of Parkinson’s. However, these people had neither a corresponding diagnosis nor the typical motor symptoms.
The researchers wanted to find out whether the protein method could be used to predict the disease before it even started.
The defective alpha-synuclein protein can currently only be detected by a spinal tap, a painful procedure to obtain a sample of cerebrospinal fluid.
88 percent of all participants diagnosed with Parkinson’s had positive test results. In contrast, over 95 percent of the control group were negative. It is particularly interesting that those people who do not have a clear diagnosis of Parkinson’s and only have possible early signs of the disease also tested positive. This was also the case for some participants who carried genetic variants associated with Parkinson’s but had no clinical symptoms of the disease.