Prostate Cancer And Parkinson’s Disease

Symptoms And Diagnosis Of Parkinsons:

Lets take a further look at Parkinsons disease.

Did you know that certain medical procedures, such as bone marrow transplants, can cause Parkinsons symptoms? Head trauma, liver disease, tumors, lesions, and vascular disease are all direct causes of Parkinsons disease. Physicians tend to be careful when testing for Parkinsons. Several different tests need to be done:

• The first test will be a blood test. The purpose is to test for toxins that may be causing the symptoms of Parkinsons.
• Next, an MRI and CT scan will examine the entire body and look for any unusual obstructions or abnormal functions in the vascular region.

Study Selection And Data Extraction

The eligible studies were included in our meta-analysis on the basis of the following criteria: the study was a cohort and/or case-control study evaluating the relationship between PD and risk of prostate cancer an estimate of association with measures of variation was provided the study was published in English. When duplicated studies were identified, only the most informative study was included,,. Case reports and abstracts from meetings were excluded.

Data from each study were extracted independently by two authors according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, and any disagreements were resolved by discussion or involvement of a third reviewer if necessary. The following data were extracted from each included study: the first author, population country, study design , publication year, patient information , ethnicity, follow-up time in years and outcome of interest. The Newcastle-Ottawa scale was used to assess the quality of the included studies. In addition, studies with NOS scores > 6 were considered high-quality studies .

Further Research Is Needed

Controversy exists within the medical arena regarding the association between PC and PD.3 Scientific findings over the years have suggested a decreased cancer rate in people with Parkinsons compared to the general population. The risk of developing prostate cancer was said to lessen with the number of years a man has had Parkinson’s disease.

However, the Utah study and other findings support the need for further epidemiological and clinical research to explore the common pathways of both diseases. Future studies should consider ethnicity, time of PD diagnosis, and PD treatment regimens as part of investigating the association between Parkinsons disease and risk of prostate cancer.3 Scientists do not yet agree on either a causative or protective link between PC and PD. The literature can be confusing. Make sure to talk to your doctor about any concerns or symptoms you may have. Individual monitoring is, for right now, still the best way to enable the best medical care.

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Parkinson’s Disease Associated With Higher Risk Of Certain Cancers

People with Parkinson’s disease and their relatives may be more likely to develop prostate cancer and melanoma. Researchers believe neurodegenerative diseases may share common mechanisms with the cancers.

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Possible Links Of Parkinson’s And Prostate Cancer

Parkinsons and prostate cancer are both age-related diseases. There have been studies demonstrating an association between having PD and an increased likelihood of developing prostate cancer. Genetic links, protein mutations, and certain medications continue to be evaluated.

Levodopa, the first line medication given to people with PD, is involved in production of melanin . These dopaminergic drugs may increase the risk of developing prostate cancer and skin cancer, according to Dr. Susan Bressman from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. There is evidence that people with PD treated with certain medication combinations had a higher incidence of prostate cancer than those in a control group.

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Study Design And Cancer Case And Control/non

The SEER-Medicare dataset was used for: a cancer case-control study of the odds of PD preceding cancer and a cohort study of cancer and subsequent PD risk.

In the case-control study cancer cases were SEER patients with a first primary malignancy in a SEER region. Cases were included if they had at least 13 months of Medicare coverage participation) before cancer diagnosis, to ensure time to diagnose PD before the cancer diagnosis. HMO coverage was excluded because Medicare does not obtain HMO claims. At diagnosis, cases were ages 66 through 84, because cancers may be under-ascertained in the oldest elderly. Cases were also excluded if diagnosed only by autopsy or death certificate. Total cancer cases were N = 836 947 .

Flowchart of cancer and non-cancer groups.

In the case-control analysis, controls were selected from the 5% Medicare sample in SEER areas and restricted to those aged 66 through 84 years, N = 604 719. Controls were frequency-matched to cancer cases by sex, age and calendar year of selection if they had 13 months of previous Part A/Part B/non-HMO Medicare coverage and no cancer at selection. Additional details are presented in Engels et al. A total of 200 000 controls were frequency matched, resulting in N = 142 869 individual controls .

What About Cigarettes Parkinsons Smoking And Risk Of Cancer

As I mentioned in a previous blog, there is also an inverse relationship between cigarette smoking and PD. It is unclear whether that is because an ingredient of cigarette smoke protects smokers from PD, or because the lack of dopamine in people with PD make them more risk-averse as a group, and therefore less likely to smoke.

Regardless, because it is clear that smoking increases the risk of multiple types of cancer, any study that investigates the cancer rates of people with PD must always account for the fact that people with PD tend to smoke less than people without PD. The most recent study which analyzes the relationship between cancer risk and PD, as referenced above, takes great pains to remove this confounding factor in its statistical analysis. Even with taking differences in smoking rates into account, the conclusion of the study is that people who have had cancer are less likely to develop PD. It is also the case that rates of certain types of cancers that have not been linked to smoking are lower in people with PD. This fact supports the conclusion that the lower rates of smoking among PD patients is not the cause of the lower rates of cancer. Regardless of any study results, cigarette smoking is linked to numerous deadly diseases and must be avoided.

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What Causes Parkinsons Disease

Parkinsons is a degenerative neurological movement disorder. People with PD experience damage to nerve cells in the brain that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine. The reduction or absence of dopamine results in symptoms that can affect changes in a persons movement and emotions. Although scientific research is advancing, there is currently no known cause or cure. Genetic and environmental factors are both thought to contribute to cause PD. Although Parkinsons treatment is individualized the first line treatment is generally with dopamine replacement medications that help to reduce tremors and muscle rigidity, and improve motor function.

Is It Genetic Or Environmental

Underlying functional changes are part of the disease process for prostate cancer, PD and melanoma.1 PD and cancer seem to have opposite effects on cells. PD degenerates nerve cells, and cancer causes cells to grow out of control. Identifying any genetic links between these diseases may help direct future screening and development of treatment protocols. Similarly, environmental factors may play an influential role. The Utah study had a geographically-controlled and genetically-similar population.

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Studies Of Cancer Associated With Automobile Accident Injuries

To evaluate ascertainment bias, we examined the relationship between cancer and automobile accident injuries occurring both before and after cancer. We expected no associations because we were unable to suggest a plausible hypothesis biologically relating automobile injuries to cancer. We also examined the risk of prostate and breast cancer after automobile accidents, two cancers on which potential confounding by smoking or alcohol would have little impact. As an acute injury, automobile injury claims were based on one medical visit. In prospective cohort analyses of cancer followed by automobile injuries, cancer patients were excluded if they had previous automobile injuries. In other respects, the analyses followed the models for cancer and PD.

We applied the Bonferroni correction to account for multiple comparisons when interpreting results of all the sub-groups and site-specific cancers for the 010 year follow-up period in the cohort analysis and thus used a corrected P -value of P< 0.0019 as a threshold for associations. P -values were based on two-sided tests. All analyses used SAS . This study was exempted by the National Institutes of Health Office of Human Subjects Research from institutional board approval.

Mendelian Randomization Does Not Support A Causal Role For Different Cancers And Pd

We performed MR with the five cancers for which we had full summary statistics. We further included 10 additional cancers with limited summary statistics, resulting in 15 cancers being included in this part of the analysis . The variance in the exposure variables explained by SNPs ranged from 0.016 to 0.059 . All instruments had F-statistics of > 10, which is the cut-off that most studies apply to indicate sufficient instrument strength . No causal effect of any cancer on PD was observed . Significant heterogeneity was apparent for cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma and combined analysis of keratinocyte cancers . There was some evidence for net horizontal pleiotropy for brain tumors and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma which may have resulted in bias to IVW estimates, but the slopes from Egger regression were imprecisely estimated. MR-PRESSO identified potential outliers for cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma . The distortion test did not suggest significant changes in the effect estimates after these outliers were removed . The sensitivity analyses revealed no clear evidence for bias in the IVW estimate due to invalid instruments with other cancers.

Additionally, we performed reverse MR using PD-associated SNPs as exposure and cancer summary statistics as outcome and did not find any evidence of causal relationship .

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Symptoms Of Parkinsons Include:

1. Tremors: The shaking usually starts from the fingers or a limb. You may experience a pill-rolling tremor, which is when the hand is shaking in such a way that the tip of the thumb and forefinger rub together in a circular motion.

2. Slow movements: Parkinsons will eventually begin to slow down the movements and functions of the body, making simple tasks more challenging and time-consuming.

3. Rigid muscles: You can experience pain or stiffness in the muscles, which can limit your range of motion.

4. Speech changes: Speech can change in several different ways you may become very soft spoken, slur your words, or even talk at an unusually rapid pace.

5. Reduced balance or posture: You may have difficulty walking at a fast pace or maintaining your balance.

Linkage Disequilibrium Score Regression

To investigate whether there is overlapping genetic etiology between PD and the studied cancers we performed a search on the GWAS Catalog12 for publicly available full summary statistics using keywords cancer, carcinoma, glioma, lymphoma, leukemia, melanoma and selected GWASs with a minimum of 1000 cases and of European ancestry. Additionally, we contacted authors and requested for full summary statistics. Overall, we were able to collect full summary statistics for melanoma,13 breast,14 prostate,15 endometrial16 and keratinocytes cancers .17 Keratinocytes cancer summary statistics include meta-analysis of QSkin, eMERGE and UK Biobank cohorts with a total of 28,218 cases and 353,855 controls. Of the cancer studies with full summary statistics, endometrial cancer, melanoma and keratinocyte cancer studies included data from the UKB. We also used GWAS summary statistics from the latest PD GWAS excluding 23andMe and UKB data, to avoid potential bias due to overlapping samples.18 After the exclusions, a total of 15,056 PD patients and 12,637 controls were included in the summary statistics.19 We utilized the LDSC method as previously described.10, 20 Summary statistics were formatted using the standard settings of the munge_sumstats.py script.10

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What Is The Prostate Gland Responsible For

The prostate is a small gland that is part of the male reproductive system. The prostate is a gland within the male reproductive system that makes and secretes seminal fluid. This fluid is clear-to-white and mixes with sperm produced in the testes to form semen. Prostate cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer in men. The most common form is adenocarcinoma, which is treatable and generally not life-threatening.

Prostate Cancer Cause May Be Linked To Parkinsons Disease Through A Common Enzyme: Study

The role of individual genes that trigger prostate cancer onset is yet to be fully understood. Researchers have undertaken to explore an enzyme that regulates prostate cancer formation in order to develop effective preventative strategies. Sirtuin enzymes have been associated with neurodegeneration, obesity, heart disease, and cancer. The research revealed the loss of one of sirtuin prompts the formation of prostate cancer in mice models.

Researcher Dr. Richard Pestell said, Using genetic deletion, we found that SIRT1 normally restrains prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia in animals. Therefore, too little SIRT1 may be involved in the cellular processes that start human prostate cancer As we had shown that gene therapy-based re-expression of SIRT1 can block human prostate cancer tumor growth, and SIRT1 is an enzyme which can be targeted, this may be an important new target for prostate cancer prevention.

The researchers created a mouse model that lacked SIRT1 and found that the mice were more likely to develop prostate cancer.

The next logical step in this line of research is to determine whether the processes at work in SIRT1-defficient mice carry the same significance for the development of prostate cancer in humans.

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Common Elements To Both Designs

We assessed associations stratified by sex, race/ethnicity and age at time of selection , and separately for specific cancer sites and smoking-related and other cancers. Associations by age strata for selected cancer sites are also presented. We limited cancer-site specific analyses to sites with at least 20 PD cases.

All models were adjusted for: sex, race/ethnicity, age , cancer registry and frequency of physician visits. For cohort models, the baseline hazard was also stratified on birth year , and case-control analyses were adjusted for year of selection .

The first PD claim date was treated as the diagnosis date. PD risks were analysed across time intervals: < 1 year 1< 5 years 5< 10 years and 0< 10 years after cancer and < 1 year 1< 5 years and 0< 5 years before cancer because some claims were limited to 5 years. Also, because patients with serious disease often receive heightened medical surveillance, we adjusted for physician visit frequency. In the cohort analyses, physician visits were counted during 6-month intervals between the selection and censor dates and, in the case-control analyses, we adjusted for the average number of visits across all intervals Claims by physicians with limited responsibility for direct patient care were excluded.

Risk Of Dementia And Parkinsons Disease In Patients Treated With Androgen Deprivation Therapy Using Gonadotropin

• Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Writing original draft, Writing review & editing

  Affiliation Department of Urology, Hallym University College of Medicine, Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital, Anyang, GyeongGi-Do, Korea

• Roles Data curation

  Affiliation Department of Urology, Hallym University College of Medicine, Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital, Anyang, GyeongGi-Do, Korea

• Roles Data curation

  Affiliation Department of Urology, Hallym University College of Medicine, Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital, Anyang, GyeongGi-Do, Korea

• Roles Data curation

  Affiliation Department of Urology, Hallym University College of Medicine, Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital, Anyang, GyeongGi-Do, Korea

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Parkinson’s Disease And Prostate Cancer

University of Utah School of Medicine scientists have found compelling evidence that Parkinson’s disease is linked to an increased risk of prostate cancer and melanoma, and that this increased cancer risk also extends to close and distant relatives of individuals with Parkinson’s disease. Eventhough a link between Parkinson’s disease and melanoma has been suspected before, this is the first time that an increased risk of prostate cancer has been reported in Parkinson’s disease.

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Parkinsons Disease And Melanoma

Even in studies that have established a lower overall cancer risk in people with PD, the risk of certain specific types of cancers is higher than in the general population.

Melanoma is a type of skin cancer that has been consistently linked to PD. People who have had melanoma are at an increased risk for PD and people who have PD are at an increased risk of melanoma. The relationship between melanoma and PD is intriguing:

• The substantia nigra, or the black substance, is the area of the brain that contains the dopaminergic neurons that degenerate in PD. These neurons are full of neuromelanin, a dark pigment found in the brain which is related to melanin, a dark pigment found in the skin.
• Levodopa is a precursor for melanin and neuromelanin.

If a person regularly ingests Levodopa, he/she may be fueling the production of melanin, and possibly the production of melanin-containing cells, which in theory would increase the likelihood of melanoma. However, some studies have demonstrated that the increased melanoma risk is present in patients with PD even before Levodopa is started, suggesting that the relationship is not due to Levodopa intake but rather to a genetic link.

Epidemiological studies have shown an increased risk of non-melanoma skin cancers in PD patients as well.

What to do if you have an increased melanoma risk?

You should know what other melanoma risk factors you have. These include:

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