Your world with Dr. Beatrice Hyppolite
Hello,
I am Dr. Marie Beatrice Hyppolite. I hold a doctorate in Health Science with emphasis on Global Health and master’s degree in social work. I have over 14 years of experience in the field of health and human services.
This podcast is primarily focused on mental health and the quality-of-life elements that affect it such as divorce, death, domestic violence, trauma, toxic relationships, and single parenthood to name a few. It is no secret that mental health challenges continue to profoundly impact modern society although not enough discussion is given due to stigma. Research has shown an increase of 25 % in mental health crises after COVID-19. It is important to have honest, uncomfortable conversations about mental health while being supportive. Although we are interdependent, change begins with the individual, hence “your world.”
I welcome you to join me on my journey and look forward to your responses.
Your world with Dr. Beatrice Hyppolite
Beyond the Tremors
Dopamine is the messenger that connects your brain to your body—and in Parkinson's disease, this crucial connection slowly disappears. Dr. Floronal Joseph returns to unpack the devastating progression of this neurodegenerative condition affecting nearly 12 million people worldwide.
Most of us recognize the tremors, but Parkinson's brings a cascade of both physical and psychological challenges. When cells in the substantia nigra region of the brain degenerate and die, they can never repair or regenerate. The resulting dopamine shortage triggers not just the familiar shaking hands, but also bradykinesia (slowed movements), involuntary actions like excessive salivation, and the often-overlooked burden of depression and social isolation.
What makes Parkinson's particularly troubling is its wide reach. While prevalence increases with age, symptoms can appear as early as 12 years old. Men face approximately 1.5 times higher risk than women until age 85, creating unique challenges for male patients who may struggle more with visible symptoms that affect traditional notions of masculinity and independence. Dr. Joseph explains how this contrasts with Alzheimer's higher prevalence in women, offering fascinating insights into gender differences in neurological disease.
We also explore the surprising geographic patterns of Parkinson's, with higher rates in America's "Parkinson's belt" across Utah and Colorado, and industrial Midwest regions where environmental toxins create heightened risk. Even diet plays a significant role, with fiber intake affecting constipation—a common but frequently overlooked symptom.
With projections showing Parkinson's cases doubling to 25 million globally by 2050, understanding this complex condition has never been more urgent. Listen now to learn how medical science is working to identify causes and potential treatments for this devastating disease.
Hello everyone, I'm Dr Beatrice Ippolit and this is your World. Hello everyone, Today, you know, we have the privilege to have back on the show Dr Florinal Joseph. Dr Joseph, thank you for coming, and how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm good, Dr Ipoli. Thank you for having me again. Thank you for the invitation and you know, as I said, I'm a resource to this show.
Speaker 1:Okay, I like that, I like that, I like that.
Speaker 2:Anyhow, I can be useful to you and to your audience, I would try to make myself available, and this is exactly what happened today. It seems like I can be useful to your show today and I'm here again.
Speaker 1:Thanks for inviting me. Okay, I really like that. Last time you were with us, dr Joseph, we spoke about Alzheimer's disease, and today so we're gonna talk about.
Speaker 2:Parkinson's disease.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:It's like recovering the neurodegenerative diseases. Actually, we spoke about Alzheimer's, we're talking now. Today we'll be talking about Parkinson's, so that's really good, okay, like, like my audience.
Speaker 1:You know I'm illiterate in that area, so what was through it?
Speaker 2:Look, you said illiterate. I don't think you are. You do know a lot about it, but we're trying to bring it down to the ground for your audience, for those who are listening to us all the listeners. We will be talking about it. So, like we said in the previous show, when we're talking about Alzheimer's disease today, parkinson's disease is one of those kind of neurodegenerative diseases. That means it's a disease that is mainly characterized by those cells, what we call the nerve cells, the neuronal cells, those cells in your brain. They degenerate and when those cells start to degenerate, unfortunately when they get damaged, they die. There's no repair mechanisms for them. Unfortunately, those cells, when they degenerate again, they can lead to some symptoms, including some movement symptoms you may have.
Speaker 1:But does the brain have the capacity or the ability to regenerate on itself?
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, the nerve cells is not the same as the normal. The other cells we have, whether the som somatic cells, the cells we have on our skin, the cells we have on our heart or the sex cells this are those cells that we have in our gonads that have the ability to reproduce, either via mitosis or meiosis, the cells in our brain. It's not the same for them, unfortunately, when they don't have the possibility to regenerate themselves, like those cells I just talked about. And, the worst thing as well, when it cells get damaged, there is a process by which the cell can repair itself. There is a repair mechanisms that can happen to the cells.
Speaker 2:But the cells that we have in our brain, unfortunately, when, when they get damaged, they die, they can't repair themselves. And actually that's a very good line of research. Actually, I remember when I was a PhD student, my lab is still actually working on finding a mechanism for the cells to repair themselves. We are in the process of finding something that can be very helpful for those people who are suffering with those kind of neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson's disease. But the cells, they don't repair themselves. As a short answer, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:Ah, okay, so, but what are the current theories on the cause of Parkinson's disease and how do genetic and environmental factors contribute to the development of Parkinson's disease? And how do genetic and environmental factors contribute to the development of the disease?
Speaker 2:So you get it right. You just said it here. Unfortunately, the causes for Parkinson's disease is quite unknown. We do not know the exact cause for Parkinson's disease. But what we do know there are some factors, as you mentioned here genetic factors, that's one we think, and the second one it's environmental factors. Those are the two factors that we think contribute to Parkinson's disease. Genetics, because you can have those genes. We have several genes that are linked to Parkinson's disease and those genes. They can be mutated. We can see how that mutations can trigger to change in your brain and in those cells and that can trigger those symptoms that we may be talking about later on. And those genes include, for instance, the famous parkinson 9, park 9 genes. We have several other type park 9, park 2, snc a, which is an alpha-synuclein gene, and the alpha-synuclein genes. It's very interesting in the sense that it's a small protein, very small. I'm so sorry for your audience if I'm getting a little more molecular.
Speaker 1:We need that because we want to fully understand exactly what's going on with that disease? That is great. So we have to fully understand that's going on with that disease. That is great.
Speaker 2:So we have to fully understand that. So what happens here? There's a small protein that we call alpha-synuclein. It's very small because it's about 14 kilodalgons, so very, very small protein that we found. That this protein it has to do with some other granules that accumulate in our brain which we call Lewy bodies. Those Lewy bodies, they accumulate in a specific region of your brain which we call substantia niagara. When those Lewy bodies accumulate there, so they prevent those neuronal cells to secrete a very important neurotransmitters that we call dopamine. It prevents those cells to secrete we call them dopaminergic cells, neuronal cells. They cannot secrete dopamine. So dopamine, literally it's a small protein. It's a small protein, it's a small molecule, I would say that literally puts your brain in contact with the rest of your body.
Speaker 1:That's the importance of the dopamine.
Speaker 2:Dopamine is extremely important because it's signaling molecules. You know all the signals. They come from your brain when those nerve cells they fire. When they fire it's like this fire you have behind us here. So they are sending a message, but for that message to be distributed throughout your body, the dopamine you need.
Speaker 1:The department is responsible for that it's a neurotransmitters.
Speaker 2:It transmits this message. So when you have those neuronal cells, those nerve cells, they cannot secrete dopamine. So now you have those molecules that I call earlier lower bodies, that accumulate in that substantia nigra and that cause you will start having some problem in within your whole body that is linked to this problem that we have in our brain.
Speaker 1:When you say Dr Joseph, some problems, so can you mention at least one or two?
Speaker 2:Of course that brings us to actually the symptoms we can have. They can link to some movement problem. Those are the motor symptoms, movement including, for instance, slowness in your movement. For instance, someone who suffers from Parkinson's disease. You may be sitting down but when you're standing up you can't. You are slow to to to stand up. The jargon to that is body kinesia, somebody who suffers bradykinesia. That means they are slow in the movement. Not only that, they have tremor, like you may want to take something and it's involuntary.
Speaker 1:When you have tremor you want to grab something and you start to shake.
Speaker 2:Yeah, your hands start shaking involuntarily and it's asymmetrical those movements. The tremor movement is asymmetrical. What does that?
Speaker 2:mean you start feeling it only in one side of your body. This a means without it's not the perfect symmetrical, where you feel it in both ends. However, as you're progressing in this disease, you will start feeling in both hands the same way. You're taking something, you start shaking here, you can feel it as well with this hand also, you can feel it with this hand. So it's asymmetrical at first, at the beginning, where you start feeling that shaking, that's tremor, and you have the slow movement as well. And as you're progressing, these symptoms that we call dystonia. Dystonia does it's like you start to pour saliva. Right, it is involuntary movement, like you may be sitting and without knowing it, you're not doing anything and saliva start to be pouring out of your mouth.
Speaker 1:That can have some social impact on you right when you can prevent you from going outside exactly realizing with others exactly you don't want for people to notice that you those are dealing with this power that is so true what you say, and again you will see how that will link to with to depression and anxiety you have in
Speaker 2:that show the mental health side of your show. In general, it's mainly focused on mental health and you can see how Parkinson's disease can lead to that, because what I just said and you just said it too when you start having the social problem, that can lead to what we call the non-motor symptoms. The non-motor symptoms. Those are symptoms that they are not really related to movement, but the consequences can clearly link to mental health, like depression, as you said, anxiety and people will start to isolate themselves more exactly that can even lead to suicide.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of very serious, oh wow those are the kind of businesses.
Speaker 2:You don't hear a lot of people talking much about them because in united states, fine sense we have approximately less than a million people diagnosed with Parkinson's.
Speaker 1:What is the age of onset?
Speaker 2:Look, we can classify them as we did for Alzheimer's disease. We can classify Parkinson's disease into different stages the early stage, the beginning stage and the late stage. The early stage it can start as early as 12 years old, 15 years old. That's what we call Parkinsonism, that's early onset of Parkinson's. So you can see it in a child, specifically when you notice that in children like 12 years old, like those adolescents, it's mainly linked to genetic problems. As we said, the cause can be genetics and or environmental. So genetically you can have this kind of defect in those genes responsible for Parkinson's disease and that kids, unfortunately, can inherit that defective genes and now they can have this Parkinson's disease. Does that earlier on set of it as you progress.
Speaker 2:We say Parkinson's disease is like an aging disease. That means as you're getting older, the tendency is that you may be prone to Parkinson's disease. So someone between 40, 50 years old up to 60 can also have Parkinson's disease, right, because it's an aging disease. However, as you're getting above 60 years old, I would classify the late onset of Parkinson's disease. Late stage of Parkinson's is above 60 years old. Now there's a higher chance for you to get this kind of business okay, that's very interesting.
Speaker 1:It's very important to know. I remember last time you know you we spoke about Alzheimer's and you mentioned that Alzheimer's is more prone to be diagnosed in females compared to males. What about Parkinson's disease?
Speaker 2:Actually, that's a good point. You just raised the gender prevalence of this disease. You find it's more in men than it is in females. It's about 1.5 times higher in men than it is in women. That's very important to consider. However, in women older than 85 years old, we notice that there's a higher prevalence in this group those who are older than 85 years old, the women. You have more of them diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Why? Because it's life expectancy and aging. Why? Because women tend to live longer than men.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's what it means.
Speaker 2:As women tend to live longer than men, that means you will find more aging women than you find men and as they are being aged and we said Parkinson's disease is mentally it's an aging disease. So you can find this prevalence to be higher in women because they live longer, so they are older. So you find this high prevalence in women than it is in men Only in this range, 85 and above among women.
Speaker 1:I'm going to keep on going back to our last show I remembered you mentioned that, according to research, one of the reasons that you know the disease Alzheimer's is more prevalent in women compared to men. It's due to stress, anxiety and depression. So now you said Parkinson's, men tend to get affected more compared to women, so is there a reason why that's?
Speaker 2:a good point. That's a very good question. Actually, we just spoke about a few symptoms, whether it's motor symptoms related to movement, or non-motor symptoms, non-movement symptoms. When we talk about motor symptoms, we spoke about bad echinacea, slowness of movement. We spoke about dystonia, like spasm. We spoke about tremor. Imagine as a man you start having this kind of problem. You know men in general they want to expose themselves. That's the way women do. But a man that can't, who want to talk to a female and you start shaking in front of the female. You imagine what that can cause to you. You will start to just close on yourself. Right, you close on yourself and that can trigger this kind of you're anxious because you don't know how would you react. When you see that female, right, you will slow to stand up. You you start shaking. That's the tremor and you don't want to be seen that way.
Speaker 1:You don't want to be seen that way.
Speaker 2:You don't want to be seen that way. So that can create this kind of anxiety, this kind of depression. So when that is created in those men, not only they are prone to have this disease but they can have those kind of symptoms that we saw in Alzheimer in female. Then we saw them in men. But with Parkinson the symptoms you will see them in men than you see them in female, because they are prone to feel anxious, to feel depressed. They are apathy, so they don't want to do anything, they don't want to go out at this time because they don't know how the body will react. So it's a very, very interesting when I say interesting, quote unquote it's a difficult problem for those men to deal with.
Speaker 1:So that's why you can see that. So it's like they will see it as an handicap to isolate themselves and not to be in public or socialize with you know, because hey, like you mentioned, men always wanna be seen as being.
Speaker 2:Men always want to be men wherever they go. Men wants to be men. You wanna portray yourself as a man. Unfortunately, you have this kind of problems that prevents you from expressing yourself. Therefore, you will reply on yourself. You just close up, you just get back to yourself, you cannot go forth, you know. So that prevents you from doing this and, of course, that can lead to those mental health issues related like to depression, apathy, anxiety. To all of those, you know.
Speaker 1:So, based on my personal opinion, the challenge in Parkinson's disease compared to Alzheimer's disease, women who will be diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, will be part. You know, 65 and up, like you mentioned you know last time. So there are women in the 40s due to stress, depression and anxiety, that can be diagnosed, you know, at a very early age, like 40 and up. But for parkinson, for the fact that you can be diagnosed with the disease at the age of 12, at any given time, so it can be 12, you can can be 20, so you don't know. So that's what make it most challenging for men compared to women.
Speaker 2:Exactly that's why the early onset of Parkinson's disease, which we call Parkinsonisms in the early age, like those adolescents that can be diagnosed with that. Imagine a young boy who's diagnosed with this disease that can affect his whole life. Yes, yes, indeed, early age and get diagnosed with that. But one things we have to say with diagnosis. I'm not a medical doctor, but we know when you're being diagnosed for with Parkinson's disease, only one symptom is not enough to diagnose you as somebody who has Parkinson's disease. Only one symptom is not enough to diagnose you as somebody who has Parkinson's disease. You may have this kind of tremor, but that's not enough to say, okay, you have Parkinson's disease. They have to see several different symptoms before they can say, okay, you have this disease definitely so.
Speaker 1:I'm not a medical doctor myself, but I'm pretty sure even you know like to diagnose somebody with a mental health problem. So they are you know, looking for many things the time, the duration so it's like it's a lot of things to be considered before you even say you know what. Because when you diagnose someone, diagnosing somebody is very serious.
Speaker 2:Of course. That's why nobody can take the liberty to just say anything about somebody's health so stay on your lane yeah, that's right, we have to stay which we lack in this right now, at this time, there are many people. They think they can do anything. They do not know where their strengths are, so they think they are good at everything. They can do everything, unfortunately, because you need to stay in your lane, as you said. Do what you can do, speak about what you can speak yeah, exactly so.
Speaker 1:Am I a biologist? No, but for the fact that I can conduct some research with, and inform or educate myself about parkinson's disease. I cannot go and present myself as a biologist to present a whole presentation. You know I may win about it All right, all right.
Speaker 2:I would have said that.
Speaker 1:If you give me a PowerPoint presentation and you send me, you say you know what, go and read that and present that. Even if I were to get present that, I should give you credit to say you know what. Dr Joseph is supposed to come and present that to you, but since he's not capable of doing it, so he asked me to come and read this to you and next time he will do the presentation. I have to know how to stay on my lane right, that's right.
Speaker 2:I remember that during the covet time that I heard people, people telling others to drink bleach to cure covet 19. So I heard those outwages clams anyway.
Speaker 1:You want to get me into politics.
Speaker 2:I don't know if it's a politician who said that, anyway, but I heard those kind of clams.
Speaker 1:No, but that was, that was, that was Seriously, it was really outwages. Yeah, if I may put it that way. So it was really out of the line.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So if we get back to Parkinson's, there's one thing I want to say. We spoke about the genetic factors. We know today we have almost 12 million people in the world who are diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, so it's a big thing and that number tends to literally double by 2050. So today we're talking about almost 12 million. So by 2050 they project that it can be about 25 millions. And even in the United States, as I said earlier back from like the last, the last paper I read actually about this, it was published in the frontier journal, so they're very high-ranked journals. It went back to 2021. That says that we have about 900 000 people in the united states diagnosed with. So it's increasing. And talking about the united states, there is a very big geographical component in it. So where you live in united states, have an effect of the prevalence of getting pockets and business so you're talking about the environmental factors that's the environmental factors.
Speaker 2:That is right because let's say, for example, if you take the midwest of united states, like kansas, michigan, you take those states, there the prevalence of having Parkinson's disease is higher than it is in other places, in other states. Why? Because of the environmental factor. As we said, we got those industry there, those chemicals that are being released there. They can impact your health. If you take what we call the Parkinson's belt, that includes Utah, colorado, those states as well, they have a high prevalence of Parkinson's disease there because of, again, the environment, those chemicals that are being released there. So not only where you live but also what you eat can influence your you to make you prone to Parkinson's disease. Because when you're getting a diet, a one symptoms we didn't really speak about, it's constipation. Constipation can be a non-motor symptom linked to parkinson's disease. Oh really, yes, it can also because, and the science.
Speaker 2:Actually they define constipation as having fewer than three bowel movement in a week. If you have fewer than three, they they understand that you are like constipated, but constipation that can lead to stress. You may be very stressed and you can't really go to. You cannot have this bowel movement just by having the stress. But if you have a diet that is not balanced, you don't have enough fibers in your diet. That can lead to constipation as well. So that's why what you eat, you get the environmental factors, your diet as well. It's very important that you control your diet because by not controlling it that can have an effect on your health and that has an effect on your mental as well.