THE UNTOUCHABLE (JOHN BANVILLE) AND LOWER INCIDENCE OF CANCER IN PEOPLE WITH PARKINSON'S OR ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

Perhaps it is the first, shivery sign of the onset of Parkinson´s disease? The bleak comedy of this possibility is not lost on me: nature being conservative, two major ailments simultaneously attacking a single organism would seem  prodigal, to say the least. One would have thought cancer quite enough to be going on with

Reverse comorbidity is the name of the phenomenon that seems to reduces the risk of certain types of cancer in patients with neurodegenerative diseases.

So it is not about the Nature being conservative, as reflects the protagonist of The Untouchable but about this genetic association which has been studied recently and opens new avenues of research in the treatment of both diseases