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Vitamin D deficiency tied to Parkinson's disease

Category: Vitamin D Deficiency-Diagnosis and Treatment

Individuals who have a family history of Parkinson's disease, as well as other common risk factors, may want to consider seeking vitamin D testing, as a new study has shown that the nutrient may be able to lower the risk for developing the neurological condition.

A team of researchers from the National Institute of Health and Welfare in Finland used blood tests to examine the vitamin D levels of 3,173 men and women who did not have the disease when the study began.

During the course of 29 years of follow-up, they found that those who had the highest levels of vitamin D were 67 percent less likely to develop Parkinson's disease.

"Recently, chronically inadequate vitamin D intake was proposed to play a significant role in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease," investigators wrote in their report, which was published in the Archives of Neurology.

"According to the suggested biological mechanism, Parkinson's disease may be caused by a continuously inadequate vitamin D status leading to a chronic loss of neurons in the brain."