Heart Risks Tied to Parkinson’s Disease

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Abdominal obesity, high triglycerides, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and high glucose readings were linked to an increased risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.

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Symptoms of poor cardiovascular health may be linked to an increased risk for Parkinson’s disease, a new study has found.

Researchers used data on 17,163,560 South Koreans over 40 years old and found 44,205 cases of Parkinson’s over the course of a five-year follow-up. They looked for five cardiovascular risk factors that define the metabolic syndrome: abdominal obesity, high triglycerides, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and high glucose readings. The study is in PLOS Medicine.

After controlling for age, sex, smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, income, body mass index and history of stroke, they found that each component of the metabolic syndrome significantly increased the risk for Parkinson’s disease.

The more risk factors a person had, the greater the risk. Compared with having none of the risk factors, having all five was associated with a 66 percent increased risk for Parkinson’s disease. The association was particularly strong for people over 65.

There are about 60,000 new diagnoses of Parkinson’s each year in the United States, and about a million Americans are living with the disease.

“The metabolic syndrome and its components are independent risk factors for Parkinson’s,” the authors wrote. “Future studies are warranted to examine whether control of metabolic syndrome and its components can decrease the risk of Parkinson’s disease development.”



Source : Nytimes