Anxiety in Decades Past Linked to Parkinson’s
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With the help of a decades old database, doctors have bridged past anxiety and negativism with the development of Parkinson’s disease and parkinsonism years later.
Researchers accessed the Mayo Clinic database looking for patients who had been treated between the years 1962 and 1965 and who had taken the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)—a standard instrument that captures personality characteristics such as anxiety, depression, sociability, and negativity or pessimism.
Then they found 4,741 of the patients, and determined that 186 of them had developed parkinsonism, and 128 had frank Parkinson’s disease. When the data were analyzed, James Bower, M.D., of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., found a correlation between anxiety and negativism and the development of parkinsonism.
“This is the first study to show that people with high levels of an anxious or pessimistic personality are at higher risk for developing Parkinson’s disease up to several decades later,” said Dr. Bower, who presented his findings at the meeting of the American Academy of Neurology.
He found:
* The risk of parkinsonism in people who exhibited anxiety in the 1960s was 1.6 times higher than in people who showed no anxious tendencies.
* The risk of Parkinson’s disease in people who exhibited anxiety in the 1960s was 1.5 times higher than in the normal population.
* The risk of parkinsonism in people who exhibited negativism in the 1960s was 1.4 times normal.
* The risk of Parkinson’s disease in people who exhibited negativism in the 1960s was 1.5 times that of normal individuals.
Dr. Bower said the studies do not indicate whether anxiety and negativism cause Parkinson’s disease or are a marker of people who are predisposed to the disease.
“These studies are important,” said Kari Swarztrauber, M.D. of Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, “because we are on the verge of identifying new products that may be able to control these diseases.”
She said that early identification of these people could lead to earlier diagnosis and treatment. Currently, by the time symptoms are discovered much of the damage of diseases such as Parkinson’s is irreversible, she noted.
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