Higher Serum Vitamin B6 and B12 Levels Associated with Parkinson’s Disease Incidence
Sarah Horn1, Rebecca Bernal2, Chadwick Christine4, Alexa Beiser5, Sudha Seshadri2, Debora Melo van Lent2, Jayandra Himali3
1Department of Neurology, UT Health San Antonio, 2Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer's and Neurodegenerative Diseases, 3Department of Population Health Sciences, UT Health San Antonio, Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer's and Neurodegenerative Diseases, 4Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, 5Department of Biostatistics, Boston University School of Public Health
Objective:
To assess the association of baseline serum vitamin B12, B6, and folate levels on risk of incident Parkinson’s disease (PD) among participants in the Framingham Heart Study (FHS).
Background:
B vitamins (B12, B6, folate) have been proposed as protective against developing PD. Higher intake of B12 and B6 is associated with lower PD risk and folate and vitamin B12 levels are lower in people with PD. Given substantial variability between vitamin intake and serum levels, we sought to determine associations between serum vitamin levels collected in unaffected individuals and risk of incident PD.
Design/Methods:
We analyzed prospectively collected data in the Original (exam 20: 1986-1990) and Offspring (exam 5: 1991-1995) cohorts from the FHS. Participants were included if data were available for PD diagnosis status, baseline serum vitamin levels (B12, B6, folate), and food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Exclusion criteria included PD diagnosis at FHS entry or within 5 years. Dietary intake of vitamins was ascertained using FFQ. Primary outcome measure was PD incidence. Results were adjusted for age, sex, dietary intake, and cohort effect. Similar analyses were completed for incident all-cause dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Results:
2,757 participants (mean age 59.7[SD, 12.4], 45.8% men) followed on average for 19.4[SD, 6.1] years were included. With surveillance beginning 5 years after entry, there were 40 incident PD cases. The
highest tertiles of serum B12 (HR 2.27 [95% CI 1.04, 4.95], p=0.040) and B6 (HR 2.96 [1.24, 7.07], p=0.015) levels were associated with incident PD, but not vitamin intake. Higher serum vitamin levels were not associated with incident dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. Higher dietary intake of vitamins was not associated with incident PD.
Conclusions:
In this longitudinal population study, higher B12 and B6 serum levels were associated with an increased risk of incident PD. The reasons for this unexpected association are unknown and require further investigation.
Disclaimer: Abstracts were not reviewed by Neurology® and do not reflect the views of Neurology® editors or staff.