Abstract Objectives Neurodegenerative diseases including Parkinson’s have been found associated to gout and hyperuricemia in multiple studies but with conflicting results. We set out to determine incidence and relative risk of Parkinson’s in all gout individuals in western Sweden 2001–2016 compared with controls. Blood urate levels in gout patients with and without incident Parkinson’s were compared. Methods All individuals with a gout-diagnosis between 2001–2016 were identified, matched to 5 population non-gout controls, individuals with prevalent Parkinson’s were excluded. Parkinson’s incidence rates were compared between cases and controls. Effect of gout on risk of Parkinson’s was calculated using Cox regression. First plasma urate level was identified for all gout cases. Results In the 42260 gout cases (67% male) and 174747 controls (65% male) the incidence rate for Parkinson’s was 1.38 per 1000 person-years in gout cases compared with 1.73 in controls rendering a significant decreased Incidence Rate Ratio (95% CI) of 0.80 (0.72–0.90), p.0001. Cox regression also showed a significant decreased risk for Parkinson’s in the gout patients, Hazard Ratio 0.77 (95% CI 0.69–0.86), p.0001. Gout patients with incident Parkinson’s had significantly lower plasma levels of urate compared with gout patients without incident Parkinson’s. Conclusion The findings in this study shows that gout is inversely associated with Parkinson’s and in gout patients urate levels were inversely associated with the risk of PD If future research proves this association to be causal it would have clinical implications in lowering urate in gout subjects at high risk of Parkinson’s.
Dehlin et al. (Fri,) studied this question.
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