New Evidence That Diet Plays Role in Parkinson's

Fri Dec 13

By Alison McCook

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Men--but not women--who eat a lot of dairy products appear to have a slightly higher risk of developing Parkinson's disease (news - web sites), but researchers cautioned that more study is needed to confirm the finding.

Dr. Honglei Chen from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts said that even if diet played a role in the development of Parkinson's disease, it would likely be only one of many factors. Consequently, cutting back on dairy may not affect risk of Parkinson's disease in men, and may increase their risk of other conditions linked to low calcium and vitamin D.

"Like other chronic diseases, Parkinson's disease is multi-factorial. Many hypotheses have been proposed and nearly all of them need further evidence for their relevance in human Parkinson's disease. Diet, if it plays a role in Parkinson's disease, is going to be one of the factors that predispose a person to Parkinson's disease," Chen said.

Parkinson's disease causes tremor, muscle rigidity and movement problems. The underlying cause is the slow loss of neurons that produce dopamine, a brain chemical involved in movement. The exact cause of Parkinson's disease has eluded the research community since the condition first appeared, and many suspect a combination of environmental factors, genetics and aging are at work.

Many previous studies have sought to examine whether some aspect of diet brought on the condition, most of which have produced murky and contradictory results.

In the newest venture into an understanding of the role of food in Parkinson's, Chen and colleagues found that men who ate the most dairy products had a higher chance of developing Parkinson's than did men who ate the least dairy products. The biggest dairy lovers ate at least 3 servings a day, while the lowest consumers said they downed less than 1 serving per day.

The authors report their findings in the December issue of Annals of Neurology.

Although the association between dairy products and the risk of Parkinson's disease appeared strong, Chen told Reuters Health that researchers need to confirm this finding in other studies, and understand more about how these ingredients might raise risk before recommending that men scale back on dairy.

"Until further evidence comes out, I do not think there is need to cut dairy consumption as the incidence is still low," Chen said.

"On the other hand, if our finding is confirmed, we should reconsider it because dairy consumption is high in Western countries," the researcher added.

Chen and colleagues base the findings on a follow-up of 47,331 adult men and 88,563 adult women from the 1980s to 1998, tracking what they ate and noting if any developed Parkinson's disease. During the study period, 210 men and 184 women developed Parkinson's disease.

SOURCE: Annals of Neurology 2002;52:793-801.

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