(See also related post: a glass of whisky a day keeps the neurologist away)
A few miles off the A96, halfway between Aberdeen and Inverness is small, sleepy Dufftown. With its wide streets, handsome clocktower and local granite that sparkles in the Banffshire sunshine, it feels like an affluent place. My parents lived in nearby Huntly about twenty years ago, so we passed through Dufftown several times en route to hikes in the Cairngorms.
A few miles off the A96, halfway between Aberdeen and Inverness is small, sleepy Dufftown. With its wide streets, handsome clocktower and local granite that sparkles in the Banffshire sunshine, it feels like an affluent place. My parents lived in nearby Huntly about twenty years ago, so we passed through Dufftown several times en route to hikes in the Cairngorms.
The reason for
Dufftown’s wealth is the whisky industry: the town is home to several
distilleries and is at the heart of the Speyside whisky trail. It claims to be the “malt whisky capital of
the world”.
The most famous
distillery in Dufftown is Glenfiddich but the one I am interested in is The Balvenie.
Avid readers of this
blog may recall a post (a family affair) in which I speculated that what may have
helped my grandfather avoid Parkinson’s for 93 years was his habit of drinking
a glass of single malt Scotch every day. At the time I was dismissive of this, but
recently I did some more research into the subject.
The magic of whisky is
that from a simple mixture of barley, water and yeast, the processes of
fermentation and distillation and the reactions with the wood in the storage
cask over long periods lead to an extremely complex mixture of chemicals.
Expert tasters and amateurs alike debate ad nauseum the nuances of different
single malts and various specially aged editions. For myself, I generally
prefer the smoky flavour of the island malts like Talisker and Laphroaig, but I
am far from an aficionado.
Amidst this juxtaposition
of fire water and subtle flavouring is a substance called ellagic acid which is
purported to have therapeutic effects on certain cancers. It’s worth stressing
that this is not scientifically proven and in fact the US Food and Drug
Administration goes as far to say it is a "fake cancer 'cure' consumers
should avoid".
But I also found one
research study demonstrating that ellagic acid has neuroprotective effects in
rats induced with a form of Parkinson’s (http://acta.tums.ac.ir/index.php/acta/article/view/5029). This study was performed by a research group
in Tehran in 2016, and as far as I know has not yet been repeated.
I am not one to chase
every food fad. As with many other diseases, whole industries build up around
unproven dietary supplements for Parkinson’s. Moreover, there are many
promising treatments that work well in rodents but do not appear to be
effective in humans.
Nevertheless, given my
grandfather’s experience I was tempted to undertake my own clinical trail.
I emailed The
Professor about it:
Dear Professor
I was reflecting on why my grandfather never developed PD symptoms despite living to 93. You may recall that I joked he drank a glass of single malt whisky every day.
I was reflecting on why my grandfather never developed PD symptoms despite living to 93. You may recall that I joked he drank a glass of single malt whisky every day.
I understand that single malt has relatively high concentrations of
ellagic acid and there have been a couple of recent studies demonstrating
neuroprotective effects of this phenol in rat models of PD (links below).
I appreciate that what works on rats frequently doesn’t work on humans,
and that other claimed health benefits of ellagic acid are as yet unproven, but
was wondering (a) if you had heard of this as a target for PD clinical trials
and (b) if you see any harm in me undertaking my own uncontrolled experiment...
He is a busy man and I only got a one line reply:
I haven’t heard of this - to be honest one of the problems here are that
the preclinical models aren’t good enough
Undeterred, I bought
several bottles of single malt including some Glenmorangie and Laphroaig and I
started drinking a small glass a day a few weeks ago.
The whole exercise is a long shot and the best I can hope for is to stabilise my Parkinson’s rather than reverse it. I don't realistically expect it to work, though my condition does seem to have
settled down since the start of the month. Single malt whisky for Parkinson's: you heard it here first...
After some further
research I discovered that the highest concentrations of ellagic acid are in
The Balvenie whiskies which I can hopefully source at one of the specialist
whisky shops in London, rather than making a trip all the way to Dufftown,
pleasant though it would be to revisit that part of the world.
I also found out that
ellagic acid is present in various fruit juices like cranberry and pomegranate.
But single malt whisky
is more fun…
