If bees are useful for polonizing flowers, they could also be useful for 150,000 patients with Parkinson’s. In this disease, patients gradually lose the neurons that manufacture dopamine, a substance essential for the proper functioning of the body. As a result, slower and stiffer movements, tremors, but also psychological symptoms such as depression or anxiety, emotional and cognitive.
The French DHUNE research program was interested in bee venom. It contains apamine, a neurotoxin that affects dopamine neurons. At the onset of the disease, they are still present, and its role is then to excite them more intensely so that they produce more dopamine. As the disease progresses, the patient loses these essential neurons, but the venom will slow down this fall.
An effect on all levels
When neurons are seriously insufficient, apamin acts on other systems in the brain to counteract motor disorders. Bee venom also shows its effectiveness against cognitive and emotional disorders, and is not toxic to the body at the doses delivered during these different studies. The researchers now want to test it at a higher dose in a new cohort.
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