A hormone called irisin, which is secreted into the blood during aerobic exercise, has been found to reduce levels of alpha synuclein, a protein linked to Parkinson’s disease (PD), and halt movement problems in mice. The new work could pave the way for a therapy for PD if confirmed in additional laboratory research and clinical trials.
The work was led by Ted Dawson, MD, PhD, from Johns Hopkins Medicine and Bruce Spiegelman, PhD, from the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. They published their study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences “Amelioration of pathologic alpha-synuclein-induced Parkinson’s disease by irisin”.
