Greater the physical activity lesser the chance of Parkinson's disease

The study has been published in Neurology.

Physical activity (PA) level is inversely linked to Parkinson's disease in women.

Researchers in the present study examined the association between time-varying PA and PD using lagged analyses to address the potential for reverse causation.

They obtained the Data from the E3N cohort study of women affiliated with a national health insurance plan (1990 to 2018).

The study results are:

• The participants had Mean baseline age of 49 years.
• The mean baseline physical activity level was 45 MET hours/week.
• The top and bottom quartiles had a mean level of 71 and 27 MET hours weekly.
• Those in the highest quartile of physical activity had a reduced risk of Parkinson's disease by 25 % than those in the lowest quartile.
• PA was self-reported in six questionnaires during the follow-up period.
• Among 1,196 cases and 23,879 Latent PA was lower in patients than controls 29 years before diagnosis; about ten years before diagnosis)
• Ninety-five thousand three hundred fifty-four women were free of PD in 2000, and PD developed in 1,074 women over 17.2 years of follow-up.
• There was a decrease in the incidence of PD with increasing LPA with an adjusted hazard ratio of 0.75

They said that Promising drug candidates might prevent or delay the onset of Parkinson's disease in future.

In this study, Parkinson's was self-reported and ascertained through medical records or algorithms.

The study has addressed the importance of physical exercise in reducing Parkinson's disease incidence.

They mentioned that the E3N cohort is restricted to women in France, so Future studies should focus more on diverse samples in demographic and socioeconomic background.

Further reading:

Portugal B, et al. "Association of physical activity and Parkinson disease in women: Long-term follow-up of the E3N Cohort Study" Neurology 2023; DOI:10.1212/WNL.0000000000207424. https://doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000207524