immune-risk-factors
State of the art
No update yet for immune-risk-factors. An update is a standalone state-of-the-art for the topic — what someone with Parkinson's needs to know about where this approach stands today.
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Longitudinal changes in national incidence of Parkinson’s disease and dementia in Korea: insights from the national health insurance database, 2003–2023
Using Korea's full national insurance database (2003–2023), the study reports new Parkinson's diagnoses fell modestly from 16.6 to 11.4 per 100,000 person-years (AAPC −2.1%), with incidence of both Parkinson's and dementia peaking in people in their 70s and 80s. The authors caution the Parkinson's decline may partly reflect changing diagnostic practices rather than a genuine fall in cases. -
Association of pulse pressure with incidence of dementia independent of established risk factors
This large observational study identifies pulse pressure (systolic minus diastolic BP, a measure of arterial stiffness) as an independent dementia risk factor, over and above hypertension diagnosis and 13 other established risk factors, in nearly 470,000 UK adults. The effect was paradoxically stronger in people without a hypertension diagnosis, pointing to an underappreciated dementia risk in apparently normotensive individuals — a group that includes many people with Parkinson's. -
Parkinson : une voie cérébrale protège les neurones féminins - Daily Beirut
The study provides a mechanistic explanation for the well-known epidemiological finding that Parkinson's is less prevalent and progresses more slowly in women: boosting β2-containing nicotinic acetylcholine receptors protected dopamine neurons in female but not male mice, pointing to biological sex — and the receptors it influences — as a fundamental modifier of disease risk and pace. -
First US state passes ban on paraquat, herbicide tied to higher Parkinson’s risk
Vermont's paraquat ban is the first U.S. state-level law to act on observational evidence that paraquat exposure roughly doubles the risk of developing Parkinson's compared with other pesticides — a risk that also extends to people living or working near fields where it is applied. The legislative milestone follows years of advocacy built on more than 90 studies submitted to the EPA, and is significant because it treats pesticide exposure as a preventable, modifiable risk factor. -
'Garbage collectors' of the brain grind to a halt in fatal multiple system atrophy
By directly comparing brain tissue from MSA patients, Parkinson's patients, and healthy controls at single-cell resolution, this study identifies microglial exhaustion as a distinguishing biological feature of MSA versus Parkinson's — a potential factor explaining why MSA carries a worse prognosis and strikes earlier. -
Loneliness predicts worse Parkinsonism: a longitudinal, community-based, clinical-pathological study
This study identifies loneliness as a longitudinal risk factor for accelerated motor decline in parkinsonism, independent of depression and objective social isolation. With nearly 3,100 participants and annual follow-up, it is one of the largest and most methodologically rigorous datasets to establish this link, and the direction of effect (loneliness → worse motor outcomes) was stronger than the reverse. -
Allergic disease as a risk factor for Parkinson’s disease: a possible role of eosinophil
Using one of the largest cohorts studied to date (5 million+ adults, 44,621 PD cases), this article establishes that asthma and allergic rhinitis — but not eczema — independently raise PD risk, with the risk increasing as allergy severity and the number of co-occurring allergic conditions grow. This specificity to airway allergies is a new and actionable epidemiological finding.