Many studies have previously discovered that the risk of neurovascular problems such as ischemic stroke (clot-causing stroke) or vascular dementia is significantly increased following a heart attack, thus the result of a lower risk of Parkinson’s disease was unexpected.
According to the findings of the current study, those who have had a heart attack are somewhat less likely to get Parkinson’s disease later in life than the general population.
Parkinson’s disease is a neurological disorder that causes tremors, delayed or slurred speech, and stiffness or reduced range of motion when walking or doing other physical tasks.
Parkinson’s disease has no cure and is also linked to behavioral abnormalities, depression, memory loss, and weariness. Stroke, psychiatric or cardiovascular medicines, or another illness might produce secondary parkinsonism, which has symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease.
“These findings indicate that the risk of Parkinson’s disease is at least not increased following a heart attack and should not be a worry for patients or a preventive focus for clinicians at follow-up,” says lead study author Jens Sundbøll.
“It is not known whether this inverse relationship with risk of Parkinson’s disease extends to people who have had a heart attack. Therefore, we examined the long-term risk of Parkinson’s disease and secondary parkinsonism among heart attack survivors,” Sundbøll said.
The researchers looked at the Danish National Health Service’s health registries. They evaluated the risk of Parkinson’s disease and subsequent parkinsonism among 182,000 patients who had their first heart attack between 1995 and 2016 (average age 71 years old; 62% male) and more than 909,000 controls who were matched for age, sex, and year of heart attack diagnosis. The findings were adjusted for a number of characteristics that have been linked to an increased risk of heart attack or Parkinson’s disease.
After correcting for a wide range of potential confounding factors over a maximum continuous follow-up of 21 years, the study found that, when compared to the control group:
- there was a 20% lower risk of Parkinson’s disease among people who had a heart attack; and
- a 28% lower risk of secondary parkinsonism among those who had a heart attack.
“For physicians treating patients following a heart attack,” according to Sundbøll, “these results indicate that cardiac rehabilitation should be focused on preventing ischemic stroke, vascular dementia and other cardiovascular diseases such as a new heart attack and heart failure, since the risk of Parkinson’s appears to be decreased in these patients, in comparison to the general population.”
Heart attack and Parkinson’s disease share several risk factors, with senior men having a higher risk and persons who drink more coffee and are more physically active having a reduced risk. However, some traditional heart attack risk factors, such as smoking, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and Type 2 diabetes, are linked to a decreased risk of Parkinson’s disease.
In general, more heart attack patients smoke and have high cholesterol, which could explain why heart attack survivors had a somewhat lower risk of Parkinson’s disease.
“There are very few diseases in this world in which smoking decreases risk: Parkinson’s disease is one, and ulcerative colitis is another. Smoking increases the risk of the most common diseases including cancer, cardiovascular disease and pulmonary disease and is definitely not good for your health,” Sundbøll adds.
One study limitation is that there was little information about smoking and high cholesterol levels among the subjects, which could have skewed the results. Furthermore, according to Sundbll, the study population was predominantly of white race/ethnicity, therefore the findings may not be generalizable to people of different racial or ethnic groupings.
Source: 10.1161/JAHA.121.022768
Image Credit: Getty
You were reading: New Study Reveals Shocking Benefit of “Heart Attack”
