Stroke and Coronary Artery Disease Are Associated With Parkinson's Disease

The relationship between vascular disease and Parkinson's disease (PD) is controversial. We performed a cross-sectional study to investigate the association of two common vascular diseases (stroke and coronary artery disease [CAD]) with Parkinson's disease.

We identified 63 and 62 PD cases in two population-based cohorts (Malu rural community and Wuliqiao urban community) and collected information of PD and non-PD by means of questionnaires. Logistic regression analysis was used to investigate the association between stroke, coronary artery disease and PD, after adjusting for age, sex, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, hypercholesterolemia, smoking status, alcohol consumption, tea consumption and body mass index.

After adjustment for potential confounders, we found that CAD and stroke were associated with PD in the Malu rural community (CAD: odds ratio [OR]=7.11, 95% confidence intervals [CI]: 3.09-16.40, p<0.001; stroke: OR=6.77, 95% CI: 3.09-14.81, p<0.001) and stroke was associated with PD in the Wuliqiao urban community (OR=2.58, 95% CI: 1.36-4.89, p=0.004), especially in women. In a subgroup analysis of PD with age- and sex-matched controls, the results were similar in the Malu rural community (CAD: OR=12.72, 95% CI: 2.92-55.32, p=0.001; stroke: OR=6.26, 95% CI: 1.83-21.42, p=0.003), whereas in the Wuliqiao urban community the results were different in that CAD (but not stroke) was found to be associated with PD (CAD: OR=2.44, 95% CI: 1.09-5.47, p=0.03; stroke: OR=1.79, 95% CI: 0.77-4.17, p=0.18).

Our study suggested that stroke and CAD are associated with PD in two Chinese population-based cohorts, indicating a probable vascular component in the pathogenesis of PD.