Vitamin D may be linked to Parkinson's

ATLANTA, Oct. 14 (UPI) -- People with Parkinson's disease appear more likely to be vitamin D deficient than healthy adults, or patients with Alzheimer's disease, U.S. researcher said.

Dr. Marian L. Evatt and colleagues at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta compared vitamin D levels of 100 patients with Parkinson's disease to vitamin D levels of 97 Alzheimer's disease patients and 99 healthy individuals matched for age, sex, race, genotype and geographic location.

The study, published in the Archives of Neurology, found 55 percent of the patients with Parkinson's disease had insufficient vitamin D than compared to the controls at 36 percent and 41 percent with Alzheimer's disease.

The findings support the need for further studies to assess what contribution a low measure of blood vitamin D levels contributes to the risk of developing Parkinson's disease versus other neurodegenerative disorders and to determine whether correction of vitamin D insufficiency and deficiency will improve motor or non-motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease, the study authors said.