Vitamin D deficiency linked to Parkinson's disease

Vitamin D deficiency was found in about 55 percent of Parkinson's patients compared to 41 percent of Alzheimer's patients, and 36 percent of healthy, elderly people.

The findings of the study adds to a growing body of evidence that lack of vitamin D could well be one of the risk factors of Parkinson's disease, according to first author Marian Evatt, MD, assistant professor of neurology at Emory.

Evatt considered comparing Parkinson's patients with Alzheimer's patients to analyze the possibility that it was the neuro-degenerative diseases in general that led to vitamin D insufficiency.

Sunlight key to getting vitamin D
Vitamin D is an essential vitamin for us, and most of us get it from sunlight, food or dietary supplements. Apparently, there are very few foods in nature that are rich in vitamin D.

Elderly individuals are more at risk of vitamin D deficiency because body’s ability to synthesize vitamin D from sunlight declines with age.

Vitamin D deficiency may be a risk factor for Parkinson's disease
"We found that vitamin D insufficiency may have a unique association with Parkinson's, which is intriguing and warrants further investigation," Evatt says.

The link can be explained if one were to consider that patients with Parkinson's have mobility problems and rarely go out in the sun. Another possibility is that low levels of vitamin D could somehow be causing progression of the disease.

The study involved 100 people from each group, who had been selected in the period between 1992 and 2007.

Every fifth Parkinson's patient from Emory's clinical neurology database was picked, and then healthy controls and patients with Alzheimer's disease were matched on age and state of residence.