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. 2020 Dec 25:22:100308.
doi: 10.1016/j.ensci.2020.100308. eCollection 2021 Mar.

Kampō medicine and Muro disease (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Parkinsonism-Dementia Complex): Postscript and Historical Footnote

Peter S Spencer  1 , Valerie S Palmer  1 , Tameko Kihira  2 , Sohei Yoshida  2 , Jacques Reis  3 , Momoko Yabushita  4 , Yoshiro Yase  5
Affiliations

Kampō medicine and Muro disease (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Parkinsonism-Dementia Complex): Postscript and Historical Footnote

Peter S Spencer et al. eNeurologicalSci. .

Abstract

Western Pacific Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Parkinsonism-dementia Complex (ALS/PDC) is a disappearing neurodegenerative disease in three former high-incidence foci of the U.S. territory of Guam, Papua-Indonesia (New Guinea) and Kii Peninsula, Honshu Island, Japan (Muro disease). We report additional data that associate medicinal use of cycad seed to Muro disease in the southern Kozagawa focus of ALS/PDC. In the other two ALS/PDC-affected populations, cycad seed was used as a traditional topical medicine in New Guinea and Guam and, additionally, for food on Guam.

Keywords: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Parkinsonism-Dementia Complex; Chamber of Iron Cycads; Filial piety; Mitogawa, Kii Peninsula Honshu, Japan; Traditional/folk medical practice.

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References

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