Parkinson’s disease causes problems with walking, balance and coordination — along with a characteristic tremor.
Anxious or pessimistic people are at a higher risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, research finds.
Parkinson’s disease affects the brain cells that control movement.
It is linked to problems with walking, balance and coordination — along with a characteristic tremor.
Dr James Bower, who led the study, said:
“This is the first study that took a group of people with documented personality characteristics but no symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and showed that those with high levels of an anxious or pessimistic personality are at higher risk for developing Parkinson’s disease up to several decades later.”
The reason for the link between the personality trait and Parkinson’s, though, is not clear, said Dr Bower:
“What we have shown in this study is that there’s a link between an anxious or pessimistic personality and the future development of Parkinson’s.
What we didn’t find is the explanation for that link.
It remains unclear whether anxiety and pessimism are risk factors for Parkinson’s disease, or linked to Parkinson’s disease via common risk factors or a common genetic predisposition.”
The conclusions come from a group of 7,216 people who were followed over more than 50 years.
Those ranked in the top 25% for anxiety had a moderately increased risk of developing Parkinson’s decades later.
The increase in risk for anxious and pessimistic people was not that great, said Dr Bower:
“We found a significant and definite link between anxious and pessimistic personalities and the future development of Parkinson’s disease.
But, the increased risk was relatively small. Just to give you an idea of numbers, if you take 1,000 40-year-olds, about 17 of them will eventually develop Parkinson’s disease.
If you take 1,000 anxious 40-year-olds, about 27 of them will develop Parkinson’s disease.”
Normal worrying in response to stressful events was not examined by the research, Dr Bower explained:
“I think it’s important to understand that what our study looked at is people with anxious personalities.
These are the chronic worriers — the people who worry about things that most people don’t seem to worry about.
Those are the people we’re saying have an increased risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.
We did not look at people who are undergoing some acute, stressful life event or people who have very stressful jobs.”
The study was published in the journal Movement Disorders (Bower et al., 2005).
