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

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.