Why the study?
Although body weight variability has been linked to mortality, cardiovascular disease, and dementia, its relationship with Parkinson disease has rarely been studied.
Does high body weight variability increase the incidence of Parkinson disease in adults ≥40 years old?
Does high body weight variability increase the incidence of Parkinson disease in adults ≥40 years old?
High body weight variability, particularly weight loss, is associated with an increased risk of developing Parkinson disease.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Body weight variability may signal higher PD risk; hypothesis-generating in observational data and requires prospective confirmation before clinical consideration.
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Although body weight variability has been associated with mortality, cardiovascular disease, and dementia, the relationship between body weight variability and Parkinson disease (PD) has rarely been studied. We aimed to investigate the longitudinal association between body weight variability and PD incidence. METHODS: A nationwide population-based, cohort study was conducted using the database from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service of the whole Korean population. We analyzed 2,815,135 participants (≥40 years old, mean age = 51.7 ± 8.6 years, 66.8% men) without a previous PD diagnosis. We determined individual body weight variability from baseline weight and follow-up visits. We used Cox proportional hazards regression models. RESULTS: The highest quartile group was associated with increased PD incidence compared with the lowest quartile group after adjustment for confounding factors (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.18, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.08-1.29). In contrast, baseline body mass index, baseline waist circumference, and waist circumference variability were not associated with increased PD incidence. In the body weight loss group, individuals within the quartile of the highest variation in body weight showed a higher HR of PD risk than those within other quartiles (HR = 1.41, 95% CI = 1.18-1.68). CONCLUSIONS: Body weight variability, especially weight loss, was associated with higher PD incidence. This finding has important implications for clinicians and supports the need for preventative measures and surveillance for PD in individuals with fluctuating body weight.
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Park et al. (2021) studied this question.
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