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Dietary antioxidants and Parkinson disease. The Rotterdam Study
M C de Rijk1, M M Breteler, J H den Breeijen
1Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Erasmus University Medical School, Rotterdam, The Netherland.
Objective:
To investigate whether high dietary intake of antioxidants decreases the risk of Parkinson disease (PD).
Setting:
The community-based Rotterdam Study, the Netherlands.
Design:
The cross-sectional study formed part of a large community-based study in which all participants were individually screened for parkinsonism and were administered a semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire. The study population consisted of 5342 independently living individuals without dementia between 55 and 95 years of age, including 31 participants with PD (Hoehn-Yahr stages 1-3).
Results:
The odds ratio for PD was 0.5 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.2-0.9) per 10-mg daily dietary vitamin E intake, 0.6 (95% CI, 0.3-1.3) per 1-mg beta carotene intake, 0.9 (95% CI, 0.4-1.9) per 100-mg vitamin C intake, and 0.9 (95% CI, 0.7-1.2) per 10-mg flavonoids intake, all adjusted for age, sex, smoking habits, and energy intake. The association with vitamin E intake was dose dependent (P for trend = .03). To assess whether the association was different in participants with more advanced disease, we excluded those with PD who had a Hoehn-Yahr stage of 2.5 or 3. This did not fundamentally alter the results.
Conclusion:
Our data suggest that a high intake of dietary vitamin E may protect against the occurrence of PD.