People with bipolar disorder are more vulnerable to Parkinson’s disease

A study published in the May 22, 2019, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology found that People with bipolar disorder are more likely to develop later Parkinson’s disease than those who do not have bipolar disorder.

For this study, scientists examine a national Taiwanese health database for the people who were diagnosed with bipolar disorder and no history with Parkinson’s disease between 2001 and 2009 for a total of 56,340 people. They were matched with 225,360 people of same factors such as age, sex and others who had never been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease or bipolar disorder as a control group. Then these two groups were followed until the end of 2011.

During the study, it is found that 222 people with no history of bipolar disorder or Parkinson’s disease developed Parkinson’s disease which is 0.1% of the total as compared to 371 of the people with bipolar disorder or 0.

After adjusting some factors that could affect the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease such as sex, age, use of antipsychotic medications, traumatic brain injury and cerebrovascular disease, people with bipolar disorder were seven times as likely to develop Parkinson’s disease.

People with bipolar disorder who developed Parkinson’s disease did at a younger age than controls group members who developed the disease – 64 years old as compared to 73 years old.

People who were hospitalized more often for bipolar disorder are more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease than those who hospitalize less.

94% of those with bipolar disorder were hospitalized less than once per year, 3% were hospitalized one or two times per year, and 3% were hospitalized more than 2 times per year.

Those who were hospitalized more than two times per year were six times more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease than those who were hospitalized less than once.

Those who were hospitalized one or two times per year were four times more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease than those who were hospitalized less than once per year.

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“Further studies are needed to investigate whether these diseases share underlying processes or changes in the brain,” Chen said. “These could include genetic alterations, inflammatory processes or problems with the transmission of messages between brain cells. If we could identify the underlying cause of this relationship, that could potentially help us develop treatments that could benefit both conditions.”

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However, this study has its own limitations such as this include only those people who sought medical help for their bipolar disorder and the database did not include a family history of Parkinson’s disease or environmental factors that could also increase the risk of developing the disease

Source:

American Academy of Neurology

Journal reference:

Chen, M. et al. (2019) Bipolar disorder and risk of Parkinson disease: A nationwide longitudinal study. Neurology.doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000007649.