Vanguard Neurologist

From Diabetes Care

People who have type 2 diabetes are more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease as they age, though researchers are uncertain what accounts for the link between the two diseases, according to a new study being published in the April issue of Diabetes Care.

The study, by researchers in Finland, is the first large prospective study to find type 2 diabetes to be a risk factor for Parkinson’s disease, a movement disorder characterized by muscle rigidity and tremors. According to the authors, people with type 2 diabetes are 83 percent more likely to be diagnosed with Parkinson’s than people in the general population. The study found the association between the two diseases existed for both men and women, independently of other confounding factors.

“Diabetes might increase the risk of Parkinson’s disease partly through excess body weight,” the researchers hypothesized, since their work showed that excess body weight was also associated with an elevated risk of Parkinson’s disease. However, they concluded that more research needed to be done to fully understand the mechanisms behind this link.

Dr. Perlmutter’s comment:

This is a link we have known about for many years. I suspect the mechanism is more likely the change in brain proteins brought about by the higher glucose levels in the diabetic. This change, called glycosylation, causes proteins in the brain to become more inflammatory and this sets the stage for degeneration. This is also the case in Alzheimer’s which similarly shows a strong link to diabetes. This article discusses the concept of protein glycosylation and it’s role in diabetes and aging: Advanced protein glycosylation in diabetes and aging.