Jennifer Matthews: Ed Geiger was diagnosed with Parkinson's three years ago, soon after he began to take the nutritional supplement, Coenzyme Q10.
Ed Geiger: There is always hope that you maybe participating in the next thing that really does something good.
Jennifer Matthews: Parkinson's patients have a defect in the part of the cell that makes energy called the Nitochondria. Coenzyme Q10 is about to partially correct this defect.
Edri Geiger: Before the supplement, things were getting so bad.
Jennifer Matthews: Ed's writing is small and hard to read, his hand shakes, he shows little expression and his voice is soft. Though his symptoms didn't improve, they didn't get worse.
Ed Geiger: They would give me dexterity test, walking test, tapping test and the tests seemed to indicate that I was not losing ground hardly at all.
Jennifer Matthews: And patients taking the highest dose, the disease was slowed by 44%. The benefits were seen in daily activities like speaking, swallowing, writing and cutting food.
Julie Carter: So when we saw the results, were we excited? We were very excited.
Jennifer Matthews: Patients also had little deterioration in motor skill.
Julie Carter: If they didn't get any worse than they were at the early stage of their disease, they could live a very meaningful life with very little disability.
Jennifer Matthews: Expert say the study was too small to prove the supplement works, but Ed is convinced. He pays $4,000 a year to buy his own supply of Coenzyme Q10. This is Jennifer Matthews reporting.
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