" Essential Tremor and Diet "
As documented in the book The Case of the Frozen Addicts,
a bad batch of so-called synthetic heroin caused, within days,
what appeared to be advanced stage of Parkinson's disease.
Thanks to a chemical contaminant called MPTP,
young men and women were left trapped inside their bodies,
near complete immobility and rigidity, in some cases left only able to move their eyes.
The seminal paper ended with the silver lining
that maybe this will help us find the culprit in Parkinson's,
maybe there's a similar substance out there killing off our brain cells.
Because of their structural similarity to MPTP, attention turned to a class of chemicals
called beta-carboline alkaloids, such as Harman, also spelled harmane.
And indeed higher levels of these toxins
are found in the brain fluid of Parkinson's patients.
These beta-carboline neurotoxins have been implicated
in a number of human diseases aside from Parkinson's disease,
including tremor, addiction, and cancer.
I've already talked about the role of diet in both preventing, and treating Parkinson's,
but the most common movement disorder isn't Parkinson's,
it's what's called "essential tremor,"
affecting 1 in 25 adults over 40, and up to 1 in 5 of those in their 90's,
making it one of the most common neurological diseases.
In addition to the potentially debilitating hand tremor,
there can be other neuropsychiatric manifestations of the disease,
including difficulty walking and various levels of cognitive impairment.
Might those beta-carboline neurotoxins be playing a role?
Harmane, is among the most potent of the tremor-producing neurotoxins.
You expose people to these chemicals and they develop a tremor;
you take it away, the tremor disappears.
What if we're exposed long-term?
Well, this recent study found that those with essential tremor
have much higher levels of this toxin in their bloodstream compared to those without tremor.
The highest levels are found in those who have both essential tremor AND cancer,
suggesting harmane may be playing a role in both diseases.
And the higher the harmane levels, the worse the tremor.
How do they get exposed to these chemicals?
Primarily through meat: beef, chicken, and pork—and fish actually.
So if this potent, tremor-producing neurotoxin, is concentrated in cooked muscle foods,
is meat consumption associated with a higher risk of essential tremor?
Men who ate the most meat in this study had 21 times the odds of essential tremor.
Just to put that in context, you go back to the original studies on smoking and lung cancer,
smoking was only linked to at most 14 times the odds, not 21.
Yes, harmane is a potent neurotoxin linked to human diseases,
and cooked meats are the major source of exposure, but which meat?
Like other heterocyclic amines, the levels may be highest in chicken.
Blood levels of this neurotoxin may shoot up within five minutes
of eating meat, a slice of turkey in this case.
Five minutes? It's not even digested by then!
This rapid uptake is indicative of significant absorption
directly through the mouth straight into the bloodstream, bypassing the stomach,
and most importantly, bypassing the detoxifying enzymes of the liver.
This may lead to higher exposure levels in peripheral organs, like the brain.
Due to its high fat solubility, harmane accumulates in brain tissue,
and using a fancy brain scan called proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging,
higher harmane levels are linked to greater metabolic dysfunction
in the brains of essential tremor sufferers.
Harmane is also found in certain heated plants, like tobacco.
A broiled chicken breast has about 13 micrograms, and cigarettes average about 1,
so a half pack of cigarettes would expose us to
almost as much of this neurotoxin as a serving of chicken.
Grilled salmon can have as much as chicken,
though fried pork appears to be the worst,
with fried reindeer not far behind in the top five.
I'd also suggest not eating too many butterflies.
Harman is created when tobacco is burned,
and also when coffee beans are roasted,
though coffee intake has not been tied to increased risk (and neither has tobacco, for that matter),
so it may be something else in the meat that's to blame
for the 2,000% increase in odds for this disabling brain disease.