Anxiety doubles the risk of Parkinson’s disease

Risk of developing Parkinson’s disease more than doubles for people with anxietyAccording to a team of researchers from University College London (UCL), who analyzed this connection in people over 50 years of age.

IN British Journal of General Practice An observational study is emerging in which the authors used UK primary care data between 2008 and 2018 to assess a total of 109,435 patients who developed anxiety after age 50 and compared them with 878,256 controls groups who did not suffer from it. .

The main finding is that among people with anxiety, “the presence of depression, hypotension, tremors, rigidity, balance problems, constipation, sleep disturbances, fatigue, and cognitive impairment were associated with an increased risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.”

The introduction to the study states that Anxiety is common in older adults, with a 12-month prevalence of around 12%.. The age of onset of anxiety disorders is typically younger, and incidence at older ages has been reported to be associated with subjective memory complaints as well as later cognitive decline.

On the other hand, Parkinson’s disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease in the world. An estimated 14.2 million people will be affected in 2040.mainly due to increased life expectancy.

Patients with Parkinson’s disease, as these neuroscientists emphasize, “may suffer from a variety of motor and non-motor symptoms, such as constipation, depression, and olfactory symptoms, long before motor symptoms develop.”

Anxiety and Parkinson’s disease

The presence of anxiety is known to increase in the prodrome of the disease, but the estimated risk in people aged ≥50 years with new-onset anxiety is unknown. Additionally, “it is unclear whether other prodromal features of Parkinson’s disease are present in this population that could help improve early recognition and elucidate progression of underlying pathology,” they note.

In this sense, they recall that a cohort study of 174,776 adults under 100 years of age without neurological diseases found that, after adjusting for age, sex, medications and comorbidities: “Patients with a recorded diagnosis of anxiety or prescription of anti-anxiety medications were more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease. that those who don’t have it and those with more severe anxiety are at higher risk. However, this study did not take into account important factors such as lifestyle or socioeconomic status, and other prodromal characteristics were not examined.”

The team stress that they tried to adjust the results to take into account age, gender, social deprivation, lifestyle factors, serious mental illness, head injury and dementia, which may affect the likelihood of people with anxiety developing the condition.

They also confirmed that symptoms such as depression, sleep disturbances, fatigue, cognitive impairment, hypotension, tremors, rigidity, balance problems and constipation are risk factors for developing Parkinson’s disease in people with anxiety.

Dr Juan Carlos Bazo-Alvarez from UCL and the first author of this paper recalls that it is known that Anxiety is a feature of the early stages of Parkinson’s disease.“But until our study, the potential risk of Parkinson’s disease in people over 50 with new-onset anxiety was unknown. “Overall, we hope to be able to detect this disease earlier and help patients get the treatment they need.”