Contribution of Nutritional, Lifestyle, and Metabolic Risk Factors to Parkinson's Disease

Abstract Background Modifiable risk factors for Parkinson's disease (PD) are poorly known. Objectives The aim is to evaluate independent associations of different nutritional components, physical activity, and sedentary behavior and metabolic factors with the risk of PD. Methods In this population‐based prospective cohort study using the data of the United Kingdom Biobank (from 2006–2010), 502,017 men and women who were free from PD (International Classification of Diseases 10th edition; “G20”) at baseline were included. We implemented a Cox proportion hazard's model to evaluate the associations of different levels of physical activity, sitting time, sleep habits, diet quality, alcohol and coffee consumption, smoking, and body mass index with PD risk, adjusting for several confounding variables. Results During a median follow‐up of 12.8 years, lifestyle factors including vigorous physical activity (hazard ration [HR] = 0.84; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.75–0.94), low‐to‐moderate sitting time (HR = 0.89; 95% CI, 0.81–0.97), and high sleep quality (HR = 0.89; 95% CI, 0.80–0.99) were associated with a reduced risk of PD. Small amounts of coffee (HR = 0.88; 95% CI, 0.82–0.95), red meat (HR = 0.86; 95% CI, 0.76–0.97), and current smoking (HR = 0.65; 95% CI, 0.56–0.75) were also associated with a lower risk of PD, whereas alcohol intake (HR = 1.29; 95% CI, 1.06–1.56) with higher PD risk. Secondary analysis, including metabolic risk factors, confirmed these findings and highlighted the potential protective effect of plasma vitamin D and uric acid, but of low‐density lipoprotein‐cholesterol, triglycerides, and C‐reactive protein as well. Conclusions Vigorous physical activity, reduced sitting time, good sleep quality together with small coffee intake and vitamin D supplementation are potentially neuroprotective lifestyle interventions for the prevention of PD. © 2024 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.