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Paging Dr. Gupta: Parkinson's Disease and Gene Therapy

Aired August 20, 2003 - 11:37   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: In our "Daily Dose," the latest research on treating Parkinson's Disease. New news out there, and good news for many people.
Our medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here with us.

Sounds interesting.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It does. And we're talking about gene therapy here. And it's important, Parkinson's Disease effects a lot of people. You probably know somebody who has it, about a million to 1.5 million people. A lot of famous people have Parkinson's. They've certainly given a face to Parkinson's recently. You can see some pictures there.

Some of the symptoms most classically are the tremor that you're noticing right there -- tremor, rigidity and slowness of movement. The most common face of Parkinson's is someone who's about 60 years old, likely to be a man or a woman, and oftentimes very healthy. There are some good treatments out there, but this gene therapy is -- actually involves injecting genes directly into the brain, might be an answer. Very early yet, Leon, but might be an answer down the road.

HARRIS: Yes, and I was going to ask you about that, because as far as I can tell, we cover this stuff so much here on the network, there's a lot of unanswered questions right now about gene therapy, isn't there?

GUPTA: Yes, there really is. And about 10 years ago, when it really started to catch on, it made all the sense in the world. So many diseases have a genetic basis for them. So somehow, if you fixed the genes, you could fix the disease, not just treat them, but actually fix the disease. But then disaster started to hit on several different levels. One of the most famous cases, actually Jesse Gelsinger (ph), 18-year-olds, in a trial for gene therapy for a disease that he had, suddenly develops multiple organ failure and dies. And you can imagine the setback something like that is for overall gene therapy.

Overall, now 2002, there were problems as well. Child participants developing a leukemia-type condition.

In January of 2003, just the beginning of this year, the FDA temporarily halted some trials. Now I'll tell you as well, the trials have actually started again, and that's what we're talking about now.

HARRIS: OK. Well, that's potentially really good news to hear, at least that there's some progress being made on that front. But I have to ask you about another story that's in the headlines today, because it is sort of related to gene therapy we just talked about here, because so many people think that heart disease is a genetic thing. They think that if there are heart attacks that run in your family, they run in your family because of genetics, but apparently, that may not be so?

GUPTA: People thought that, and doctors have thought that as well. In fact, they say the number that was quoted around for a long time is 50 percent of people have coronary heart disease, you know that diseases that causes heart attacks, could be due to genetics, age, and things that are really out of your control. Well, that puzzled doctors for quite some time, so they decided to take a closer look. Four risk factors that people talk about more than anything else: diabetes, high cholesterol, cigarette smoking and high blood pressure. Those are the four magic things. Remember those, because those are the things most likely associated with heart disease. They decided to get to the bottom of this. They looked at almost 500,000 patients, and said, OK, listen, if you've had heart disease, what is your chance of having at least one of those things, 80 percent to 90 percent in one study.

So what we're saying here, is if you have heart disease, if you really take a long, hard look at your history and all the things that make up your medical history, there's a good chance you have one of these things.

HARRIS: That's amazing. Does that mean doctors therefore that doctors may have to change the way that they treat patients, because if that's the case, it sounds to me like it's largely preventable.

GUPTA: And I think it's an important study, because you know, here's the thing is that people a lot of times think, well, it's my genetics or if it's something I can't control then what can I do about it? That's not the case. You really need to look long and hard at the things that might control this. If you smoke, stop. It's simple as that -- 36 percent reduction across the board in heart disease if you stop smoking. It's that important. But even in your 20s or late 20s, early 30s, time to start getting your cholesterol checked, time to start looking at your blood pressure. All of those things important as well.

HARRIS: Yes. And all those things guys don't normally do, too.

GUPTA: Guys definitely are not as good about it as women, seeing the doctor.

HARRIS: Yes, that's another topic for another day.

All right, good to see you, Sanjay. Take care.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired August 20, 2003 - 11:37   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: In our "Daily Dose," the latest research on treating Parkinson's Disease. New news out there, and good news for many people.
Our medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here with us.

Sounds interesting.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It does. And we're talking about gene therapy here. And it's important, Parkinson's Disease effects a lot of people. You probably know somebody who has it, about a million to 1.5 million people. A lot of famous people have Parkinson's. They've certainly given a face to Parkinson's recently. You can see some pictures there.

Some of the symptoms most classically are the tremor that you're noticing right there -- tremor, rigidity and slowness of movement. The most common face of Parkinson's is someone who's about 60 years old, likely to be a man or a woman, and oftentimes very healthy. There are some good treatments out there, but this gene therapy is -- actually involves injecting genes directly into the brain, might be an answer. Very early yet, Leon, but might be an answer down the road.

HARRIS: Yes, and I was going to ask you about that, because as far as I can tell, we cover this stuff so much here on the network, there's a lot of unanswered questions right now about gene therapy, isn't there?

GUPTA: Yes, there really is. And about 10 years ago, when it really started to catch on, it made all the sense in the world. So many diseases have a genetic basis for them. So somehow, if you fixed the genes, you could fix the disease, not just treat them, but actually fix the disease. But then disaster started to hit on several different levels. One of the most famous cases, actually Jesse Gelsinger (ph), 18-year-olds, in a trial for gene therapy for a disease that he had, suddenly develops multiple organ failure and dies. And you can imagine the setback something like that is for overall gene therapy.

Overall, now 2002, there were problems as well. Child participants developing a leukemia-type condition.

In January of 2003, just the beginning of this year, the FDA temporarily halted some trials. Now I'll tell you as well, the trials have actually started again, and that's what we're talking about now.

HARRIS: OK. Well, that's potentially really good news to hear, at least that there's some progress being made on that front. But I have to ask you about another story that's in the headlines today, because it is sort of related to gene therapy we just talked about here, because so many people think that heart disease is a genetic thing. They think that if there are heart attacks that run in your family, they run in your family because of genetics, but apparently, that may not be so?

GUPTA: People thought that, and doctors have thought that as well. In fact, they say the number that was quoted around for a long time is 50 percent of people have coronary heart disease, you know that diseases that causes heart attacks, could be due to genetics, age, and things that are really out of your control. Well, that puzzled doctors for quite some time, so they decided to take a closer look. Four risk factors that people talk about more than anything else: diabetes, high cholesterol, cigarette smoking and high blood pressure. Those are the four magic things. Remember those, because those are the things most likely associated with heart disease. They decided to get to the bottom of this. They looked at almost 500,000 patients, and said, OK, listen, if you've had heart disease, what is your chance of having at least one of those things, 80 percent to 90 percent in one study.

So what we're saying here, is if you have heart disease, if you really take a long, hard look at your history and all the things that make up your medical history, there's a good chance you have one of these things.

HARRIS: That's amazing. Does that mean doctors therefore that doctors may have to change the way that they treat patients, because if that's the case, it sounds to me like it's largely preventable.

GUPTA: And I think it's an important study, because you know, here's the thing is that people a lot of times think, well, it's my genetics or if it's something I can't control then what can I do about it? That's not the case. You really need to look long and hard at the things that might control this. If you smoke, stop. It's simple as that -- 36 percent reduction across the board in heart disease if you stop smoking. It's that important. But even in your 20s or late 20s, early 30s, time to start getting your cholesterol checked, time to start looking at your blood pressure. All of those things important as well.

HARRIS: Yes. And all those things guys don't normally do, too.

GUPTA: Guys definitely are not as good about it as women, seeing the doctor.

HARRIS: Yes, that's another topic for another day.

All right, good to see you, Sanjay. Take care.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com