Plain English - Low body mass index and life prognosis in Parkinson's disease

Over the last few years we have seen research that suggests being underweight has a negative or detrimental effect on survival with diseases like Parkinson's. The same has been shown for motor neurone disease and Alzheimer's. Whether this reflects a more aggressive form of the disease, which in itself also affects weight, or whether being a bit heavier makes you a bit more 'robust' to these diseases remains to be seen. 

In this study the authors show something similar. When they looked backwards in time in a large number of patients with Parkinson's, they saw that those that were underweight had survived for a shorter time than those that were normal weight or over weight. We must be cautious in how we interpret the results because they don't necessarily suggest that being heavier is better and indeed obesity causes an increase in heart and vascular disease, diabetes, and cancer. However it does suggest that being underweight and having Parkinson's is not a good idea either. Aiming for a recommended normal weight and BMI (body mass index) appears to offer the best option considering all outcomes. 

The reason I am particularly interested in this study is because last year we published research showing that higher BMI appears to protect you against Parkinson's. The special thing about the analysis that we did was that it assessed the effect that BMI has on Parkinson's (BMI -> Parkinson's) without being affected by the effect that Parkinson's has on BMI (Parkinson's -> BMI). The method we used was called Mendelian randomisation and it is increasingly used to assess whether risk factors cause a disease as opposed to simply being associated.

The relationship between weight and BMI and Parkinson's disease is complicated and is an important area for further study.

- Alastair Noyce

Parkinsonism Relat Disord. 2018 May 15. pii: S1353-8020(18)30241-4. doi: 10.1016/j.parkreldis.2018.05.011. [Epub ahead of print]
Park K, Oeda T, Kohsaka M, Tomita S, Umemura A, Sawada H.

https://www.prd-journal.com/article/S1353-8020(18)30241-4/fulltext

INTRODUCTION: Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) frequently lose weight, even in the early stages of the disease. Our objective was to clarify the association between low body mass index (BMI) and life prognosis in PD.

METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 651 PD patients (380 females), with a primary endpoint of survival. Because of sex differences in BMI, male and female data were separated. We compared survival times between underweight (BMI < 18.5) and non-underweight (BMI ≥ 18.5) patients and calculated hazard ratios (HRs) adjusted for other relevant factors. To investigate the semi-quantitative relationship between relative risk of death and BMI, we divided patients into lower, middle, and upper thirds of BMI and calculated the HRs of the lower and upper thirds, with reference to the middle third.

RESULTS: Seventy-nine patients (41 females) died over a mean (standard deviation) observation period of 39 (26) months. Underweight patients had poorer life prognosis than non-underweight patients and the difference was larger in males than in females (adjusted HR 3.8 (95% confidence interval 1.9-7.9) in males and 1.8 (0.9-3.5) in females). In males, the relationship between survival and BMI was much poorer in the bottom third and slightly poorer in the top third compared with the middle third. In females, the higher the BMI, the better the survival prognosis; however, the difference was not statistically significant.

CONCLUSION: Low BMI had a significant impact on the life prognosis of PD patients, especially males.