After he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, Steve Iseman set out on an 8,000-kilometre trip across Canada to raise money and awareness about the disorder.
But what he experienced when it came to his symptoms during that trip piqued the interest of researchers at the University of Guelph.
Iseman, 57, who lives in Toronto, said the diagnosis a decade ago was “devastating news and frankly, it changed everything.”
Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative disease that can impact a person’s ability to move and speak. For Iseman, it causes muscle stiffness and brain fog. There is no cure and Parkinson Canada says more than 100,000 Canadians live with the disease.
Iseman said he tried to hide the diagnosis from his friends for about five years before he decided to be open about having Parkinson’s and what it was doing to him.
He worked to stay active because he found physical activity helped alleviate his symptoms.
“I came to recognize the benefits of cycling as a way to treat the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.”
That led to his decision to do an 85-day cross-country trip, called Spinning Wheels Tour, to raise awareness about the disease.
“Specifically, we were trying to engage with other people who had Parkinson’s, three out of four of which are in hiding or otherwise disconnected from the Parkinson’s community, and sort of draw them in,” he said.
“I was trying to get our voices together.”
Unique research opportunity
At the same time Iseman was starting his cross-country tour in 2022, Philip Millar, a University of Guelph human health and nutritional science associate professor and researcher, was doing an exercise clinical trial that was funded by Parkinson Canada.
“We thought it was a really unique opportunity to be able to test him before and after such a really large kind of dose of exercise.”
The study into Iseman’s trip across Canada and the benefits he saw have been published in the journal Physiological Reports.
Philip Millar is an associate professor who researches cardiovascular physiology at the University of Guelph. (University of Guelph)
Millar said he was aware Iseman was already taking part in regular exercise and was physically fit, doing an average of about 300 minutes per week of cycling, “more than double what the average recommended guideline is.”
“We were unsure of how much more benefits he might see.”
It was thought that, given his physical abilities, Millar wouldn’t see any additional benefit from the cycling trip across Canada.
“That’s not really what we saw at all,” Millar said.
“We saw across almost all of our parameters, he got fitter, some of his motor symptoms decreased, he got stronger.”
Millar said while the really high-volume, high-intensity workout Iseman was doing “isn’t practical for recommending to patients … it is encouraging that it will tell us that there really isn’t an upper bounds to the benefits.”
Exercise is good, more is even be better
Iseman said he definitely felt the benefits on the bike ride — so much so that one day, he tried to go without taking any of his medications.
“It wasn’t great — the symptoms were still there — but it was a testament to the fact that it crossed my mind,” he said.
Millar said they tested Iseman using different scales and ratings, and noted:
On the Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale Part III, his motor score decreased 44 per cent, from 46 to 26.
Iseman’s ability to generate power through knee extensions increased 12 per cent over the trip.
His score on a standard test to measure Parkinson’s fatigue, the PFS‐16, decreased 32 per cent, from a 3.4 to 2.3.
Millar said the big takeaway isn’t that people with Parkinson’s should work their way up to being able to cycle across Canada.
Steven Iseman performs a cycling test in the Human Health and Performance Lab at the University of Guelph. (University of Guelph)
Instead, he said, the message is that exercise is good and more is even be better.
“We would have expected that [Iseman] would have already gained a lot of those benefits because he was already doing 300 minutes a week of exercise. So, you know, some might argue that there isn’t going to be room for anymore modification,” Millar said.
“After the trip, when we compare his aerobic fitness to healthy age and sex-matched controls, he was about 150 per cent of normal. So you know, here’s someone that has had Parkinson’s for, at the time, about eight years, and his fitness level is running 150 per cent of what the average Canadian for his age and sex is.”
Iseman’s story ‘an inspiration’
While it’s a review of the experience of one person, Karen Lee, president and CEO of Parkinson Canada, said Iseman’s story is “an inspiration and demonstrates the resilience of the Parkinson’s community.”
The Parkinson Canada National Research Program has invested $31 million in projects since 1981, including Millar’s work, and Lee said in an emailed statement that Iseman’s experience has been proven through other research.
“We have seen time and time again that exercise has positive benefits for people with Parkinson’s,” Lee said.
“The most important takeaway from this research is that it helps equip people with Parkinson’s with information to make informed decisions about the best approaches to manage the disease.”
Iseman kept a blog of his travels across the country and posted photos from the Spinning Wheels Tour to Facebook. (Spinning Wheels Tour/Facebook)
The research on the exercise trials Millar was working on in 2022 when Iseman was doing his ride across Canada are set to be published later this year.
As for Iseman, he has plans to go to northern Norway for a cycling event that “I can’t resist.”
Then, the Spinning Wheels Tour is coming back this summer. They plan to start this time from the Arctic Ocean, where there are “surprisingly few roads,” Iseman said.
“It’s going to be done as a relay and I’m only going to be doing a bit of it,” he said. “If all goes according to plan, we’ll start at the Arctic Ocean and come south.”
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
