The drug causes dyskinesia, involuntary, erratic muscle movements of the patient’s face, arms, legs, and torso.
“Paradoxically, the exact therapy that improved the quality of life for tens of thousands of Parkinson’s patients is the one that contributes to the rapid decline in quality of life over time,” says Amal Alachkar, associate professor of teaching in the University of California, Irvine’s pharmaceutical sciences department and co-corresponding author of the study. “L-dopa has been shown to accelerate disease progression through neural mechanisms that are not very well understood.”
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