Alcohol Consumption And Risk Of Parkinson’s Disease: Data From A Large Prospective European Cohort
Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Correspondence to:
Unit of Cancer Epidemiology, Città della Salute e della Scienza University-Hospital, Turin, Italy
Center for Cancer Prevention, Turin, Italy
Hellenic Health Foundation, Athens, Greece
First Department of Neurology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
Department of Epidemiology, Regional Health Council, Instituto Murciano de Investigación Biosanitaria -Arrixaca, Murcia, Spain
Centrode Investigación Biomédica en Red in Epidemiology and Public Health, Madrid, Spain
Department of Health and Social Sciences, Universidad de Murcia, Murcia, Spain
Clinical Memory Research Unit, Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden
Memory Clinic, Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden
Centrode Investigación Biomédica en Red in Epidemiology and Public Health, Madrid, Spain
Navarra Public Health Institute, Pamplona, Spain
Institutode Investigación Sanitaria de Navarra , Navarra Institute for Health Research, Pamplona, Spain
Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK
Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Correspondence to:
Parkinsons Disease And Alcohol: Your Guide
If you have Parkinsons disease , you may be wondering whether alcohol consumption affects the development or progression of your condition. Some people may wonder if they should avoid drinking completely. As one MyParkinsonsTeam member asked, How does alcohol affect Parkinsons how much can I drink? Or should I avoid drinking altogether?
Some studies havent found that small amounts of alcohol are associated with a higher PD risk, while others highlight the dangers alcohol can pose for anyone with a chronic condition. In addition, there may be adverse interactions between alcohol and common Parkinsons medications. Because of conflicting information, people with PD may feel confused about whether or not to drink.
Ive been told by more than one doctor that I should not have any alcohol, one MyParkinsonsTeam member wrote. And at this point, I dont remember which doctor or specifically why.
So, how do you decide what approach to take?
If you have Parkinsons disease and are trying to decide whether or not to reduce your drinking or quit alcohol completely here are some things to consider.
Assessment Of Alcohol Consumption
Average consumption of alcoholic beverages during the 12-month period before recruitment and at ages 20, 30, 40, and 50years was collected via validated country-specific dietary and standardized lifestyle questionnaires. Alcohol consumption at each point in time was derived from the consumption frequency of glasses of beer, cider, wine, fortified wine, sweet liquor, or distilled spirit. Total alcohol intake was expressed as grams per day based on country-specific and sex-specific standard glass volumes and beverage-specific ethanol percentages derived from 24-hour dietary recalls conducted in a 10% subsample of the EPIC cohort. A more detailed description of the variables can be found elsewhere. Information on lifetime alcohol was available for 150,197 participants because these data were not collected in Sweden and Naples .
Alcohol consumption was categorized into < 0.1 g/day , 0.1 to 4.9 g/day , 5.0 to 14.9 g/day, 15.0 to 29.9 g/day, 30.0 to 59.9 g/day, and60 g/day. As per previous EPIC papers,- we used light consumers as the reference category because total abstainers may represent a highly selective group. For lifetime consumption of specific types of alcoholic beverages, including beer, wine, fortified wine, and spirit/liquor, 15 g/day was the highest category.
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Alcohol Use Disorder Neurodegeneration Alzheimers And Parkinsons Disease: Interplay Between Oxidative Stress Neuroimmune Response And Excitotoxicity
- 1Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- 2Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- 3Neuropharmacology Research Laboratory, Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Monash University Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia
- 4Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- 5Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Can I Take Part In A Clinical Trial
Research is a key aspect of Parkinsons and there are many research projects and trials in various countries. But before considering taking part in one, always discuss this with your doctor and seek his or her advice as to whether or not your participation may have an impact on your current treatment plan. It could be very helpful to contact the national Parkinsons association1, 2 in your country as they may be able to provide further details so that you will have as much information as possible with you when you talk with your doctor.
For further information, including the trial process, benefits and risks to participating, see Clinical Trials.
References:
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Alcohol In Essential Tremor And Parkinsons Disease
Alcohol drinks contain the substance ethanol, which is a psychoactive drug. Alcohol in low doses may cause euphoria, reduced anxiety, and sociability, while in high doses it may cause drunkenness , stupor and unconsciousness. Long term use may lead to alcohol dependency. While alcohol may cause all these, it affects Parkinsons Disease and Essential Tremor patients differently. Tremoring may occur due to many different diseases and reasons. Alcohol withdrawal and abuse can cause said tremors, especially in the hand, since alcohol kills certain nerve cells. For Essential Tremor patients the ingestion of alcohol has been shown to improve the tremors. Doctors may use alcohol to see diagnose ET if they see a decrease in the amplitude of tremors, albeit not very common. There are studies underway regarding the correlation between alcohol and ET. One of the studies conducted by JH Growdon, took 5 ET patients which showed a decrease in tremor amplitude after 15 minutes of ingesting alcohol. The same 5 patients were given equal amounts of ethyl alcohol infused into a brachial artery, and there was no decrease in tremor amplitude. Concluding that in patients with essential tremor, ethanol acts on sensitive structures within the central nervous system and has no effect on peripheral tremor-genic mechanisms. Providing evidence for a central mechanism in essential tremor, distinguishing it from other tremors arising primarily from oscillation in peripheral servo-loops.
Multivariable Mr Analysis Adjusting For Competing Substance Use Phenotypes
While our univariate MR analyses indicate whether genetic predisposition to these risk factors is associated with PD risk, it remains unclear whether other highly correlated environmental risk factors potentially mediate those relationships. To evaluate the direct effect between our exposures of interest and PD risk, we fitted another IVW regression model by regressing out the genetic association between our SNP instruments and the following putative risk factors in our MR analyses: BMI, years of education, smoking status and cigarettes per day alcohol intake . For BMI and education attainment , we derived the genetic effect size estimates from the UKBB cohort. The UKBB data were QC-ed as per previous work: The GWAS for BMI included 437,458 individuals, while normalized educational attainment included 214,999 individuals. We used BOLT-LMM mixed model software adjusting for recruitment age, sex and the first ten ancestral principal components. For alcohol and smoking-related traits, we adopted the effect size estimates from the GSCAN summary statistics.
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Study Finds No Link Between Alcohol Consumption Risk Of Parkinson Disease
Although men with moderate lifetime alcohol consumption were at higher risk of developing Parkinson disease compared with light drinkers, no significant link was found between alcohol consumption and risk of PD, according to study findings.
Although men with moderate lifetime alcohol consumption were at a higher risk of developing Parkinson disease compared with light drinkers, no significant link was found between alcohol consumption and risk of PD, according to study findings published in Movement Disorders.
Because the complex etiology of PD involves a myriad of genetic and environmental factors, the specific mechanisms of certain associations, such as cigarette smoking and caffeine intake with decreased risk of PD, remain poorly understood. In prior meta-analyses, alcohol consumption, which serves as another possible factor in the development of PD, was suggested to have an inverse association.
The results, however, are as yet inconclusive: the inverse association was mainly observed in retrospective case-control studies, but was not as clear in studies based on prospective cohorts, said the study authors.
In the study findings, the researchers found no association between alcohol consumption and risk of PD at recruitment and during lifetime. When stratified for sex, male lifetime moderate consumers exhibited close to a 50% higher risk of PD compared with light consumers . However, there was no exposureresponse trend observed .
Reference
Alcohol Intake And Parkinson’s Disease Risk In The Million Women Study
Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
Correspondence to:
Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
Correspondence to:
Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
Funding agencies:: This study was supported by the Medical Research Council UK, Cancer Research UK, and Harvard-Oxford Program in Epidemiology. The Million Women Study is funded by Medical Research Council UK and Cancer Research UK. The funders played no role in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data in the writing of the report and in the decision to submit the paper for publication.
Relevant conflicts of interest/financial disclosures:: Nothing to report.
Full financial disclosures and author roles may be found in the online version of this article.
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Does Alcohol Consumption Reduce The Risk Of Parkinson’s Disease
Neurology Reviews
Suggested ReadingBrust JC. Substance abuse and movement disorders. Mov Disord. 2010 25:2010-2020.Hernán MA, Chen H, Schwarzschild MA, Ascherio A. Alcohol consumption and the incidence of Parkinsons disease. Ann Neurol. 2003 54:170-175.
People who moderately consume beer may reduce their risk of developing Parkinsons disease by 27%, compared with nondrinkers.
SAN DIEGOModerate consumption of beer is associated with a lower risk for Parkinsons disease, while greater consumption of liquor is linked with a higher risk, according to a study presented at the 136th Annual Meeting of the American Neurological Association. Total alcohol consumption, however, was not associated with a risk for Parkinsons disease, researchers reported.
Unlike studies regarding Parkinsons disease risk and smoking or coffee-drinking, previous studies on alcohol consumption and the risk for Parkinsons disease generated inconsistent results, and few studies examined relationships for individual types of alcohol drinks, study investigator Honglei Chen, MD, PhD, from the Aging & Neuroepidemiology Group of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, told Neurology Reviews.
Our study supports the very preliminary evidence that beer consumption is related to a lower Parkinsons disease risk, Dr. Chen continued. On the other hand, high liquor consumption is related to a higher Parkinsons disease risk.
Alcohol And Parkinsons Disease Is There A Link
The link between alcohol and Parkinsons disease has remained the focus for researchers for many years. They have been trying to find out whether its consumption reduces the risk of developing Parkinsons disease.
The first evidence in this regard came from a study conducted in Spain in 1994 that involved 74 Parkinsons patients and 48 control subjects.
In this study, several environmental factors were investigated for their risk of developing Parkinsons and alcohol was one of them. It was found that alcohol drinking reduced the risk of developing Parkinsons disease in males.
Almost a decade later, similar results were reported in one information-based study involving 150 Parkinsons patients and 150 randomly selected people from the same area. The information detail was collected by interviewing these subjects. It was found that drinking alcohol had an inverse relation with Parkinsons disease.
But these results are contrary to the results found in studies published in the last few years. These new studies found no association between alcohol intake and risk of Parkinsons disease. For example, a recent review study compiled results from 17 different studies concluded that there is a weak association between alcohol consumption and Parkinsons disease. While a large prospective study published in the Journal of Movement Disorders also concluded that there is no link between alcohol intake and risk of Parkinsons disease.
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Alcohol And Effects On Parkinsons
Further to Shasha’s recent question on the effects of alcohol, I was wondering whether there has been any research into the possibility that alcohol could accelerate the progression of Parkinsons? A lot of people seem to find that they are not able to tolerate alcohol like they used to. I do not over indulge, but have not found any difference in my reaction to alcohol. We are all different, I know, and on different types of meds. Maybe it is the meds that cause different reactions. Who knows? I will continue to have the odd tipple until I am told differently.
I often wonder if I should take to drink. I have never been a drinker, so am not one who can tolerate alchohol much anyway. However, I was always of the opinion that a little of what you fancy does you good.
I agree with you Oldtyke,a little of what you fancy does you good! I am not a drinker myself,but every once in a while I will have a few and it helps me sleep.Like everything else in life,moderation is key.If you over indulge you will suffer the consequences!So instead of 6 drinks maybe only have 3!!!!!
I found it had no effect, but I do believe you should ask the DR My Nero said it was fine.
Have a GREAT day
Hi, I was DX’d in May at 45 years and for a while I have found that I cant tolerate alcohol at all.
Phil B
I find no difference when I have a drink, Not that I drink that often. But I guess it’s different strokes for different folks.
Sue, we all know how good you are.
Will I Be Able To Continue At Work And Should I Tell My Employer
As with most things to do with Parkinsons, how it affects your work will be a very individual matter. You may have a very good relationship with your employer and so may want to be honest with them about your Parkinson’s. You will need to think about how your work will affect you physically, especially if you have a demanding job. You may also find working becomes more challenging as the symptoms progress.
In short, there is no standard reply. Many people continue to work for years whilst others find that the illness progression or the nature of their job makes it harder to continue working for long.
See also Work.
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Confounding By Personality Traits
Ten studies analysed the effects of alcohol consumption alongside smoking and caffeine intake as risk factors for PD. Two of these studies found statistically significant inverse associations for all three factors . One of these studies also found a dose-dependent trend for the presence of at least one, two or three of smoking, coffee or wine drinking behaviours, with the greatest risk reduction for all three . The other study suggested that personality traits confounded the associations between each of the three factors and PD risk . These findings suggest that a confounding variable common to all three factors may explain or partially explain their hypothetical protective effects. However, against this argument is that the remaining eight studies either did not observe significant associations for all three factors or observed significant effects but in different directions. The majority of studies did not find simultaneously protective effects for smoking, coffee drinking and alcohol consumption, suggesting that the presence of a confounding variable common to all three factors, such as an addiction-avoiding personality trait, is unlikely.
Dementia Or Alzheimers Like Phenotypes
Expression of TLR7, HMGB1, and microglia activation marker are increased in post-mortem human alcoholic hippocampal tissue and expression of TLR7 was correlated with alcohol intake. Consistent with human findings, TLR7, HMGB1, IL-1, TNF-, and let-b are also highly expressed in rat HEC brain slice culture following alcohol intake. Alcohol increased the release of let-7b in microglia-derived microvesicles and binding of let-7b to the chaperone HMGB1 and DAMP, and reduced the binding of let-7b to its classical target, Ago2. Together, the findings suggest that alcohol may mediate hippocampal neurodegeneration via let-7b/HMGB1/TLR7-associated signaling pathways . MicroRNA let-7b is highly expressed in CSF of AD patients . Intrathecal injection of CSF from AD patients into the CSF of wild-type mice resulted in neurodegeneration, whereas injection into CSF of mice lacking TLR7 did not result in neurodegeneration, suggesting the pivotal role of microRNAs such as let-7b in TLR7 signaling mediated CNS damage .
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Are There Any Changes I Could Make To Help Me Stay In Control
Yes, there are many changes you can make to help you stay in control and remain independent. Adapting your daily routine is one important way that you can help yourself. Choose a time in the day when your medication is working well to embark on any strenuous activities, and always pace yourself, taking rests if you need to.
There are also many types of specialist equipment to help with activities such as washing, dressing and eating for example. Occupational therapists are trained to help people to maintain their independence and adapt to any limitations they experience. They can advise on special equipment and modifications to your environment or daily routine.
Many people also devise their own strategies for coping with some difficulties – see Coping strategies videos for a range of ideas. For other helpful hints on everyday living see Helpful hints.
See also Living well.