Starting to see more of these initiatives... genetic variability clearly underlies at least some, if not a large proportion, of disease heterogeneity. This is not limited to simply getting PD alone but also contributes to the disease course....
Mov Disord. 2016 Feb 8. doi: 10.1002/mds.26505. [Epub ahead of print]
Pihlstrøm L, Morset KR, Grimstad E, Vitelli V, Toft M.
BACKGROUND:
The contribution of genetic variability to clinical heterogeneity in Parkinson's disease is insufficiently understood. We aimed to investigate the effect of cumulative genetic risk on clinical outcomes.
METHODS:
In a single-center study of 336 patients we genotyped 19 independent susceptibility variants identified in genome-wide association studies of Parkinson's disease. We tested for association between a cumulative genetic risk score and 3 outcome measures: survival, time until progression to Hoehn and Yahr stage 3, and Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale motor score severity.
RESULTS:
Genetic risk score was significantly associated with time from diagnosis to Hoehn and Yahr stage 3 in a Cox regression model (P = 0.010). We observed no clear association for the other outcomes.
CONCLUSIONS:
We present results linking cumulative genetic risk to a motor outcome in Parkinson's disease. Our findings provide a valuable starting point for future large-scale efforts to map the genetic determinants of phenotypic variability.
I suggest the genetic variation may be complemented or be associated with variations in the gut population thus starting PD in different ares of the gut.
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