Correlation seen in men only. Sorry, Ladies...

Urate levels linked to slower progression of Parkinson's disease
Source: Reuters
Author:
Date: Tue, 15 April 2008

Serum levels of urate, a strong antioxidant, are inversely associated with clinical progression of early Parkinson's disease, according to a report in the April 14th online issue of the Archives of Neurology. The association is most pronounced and only statistically significant in men.

The findings show that patients with the highest levels were half as likely as those with the lowest levels to progress to clinical disability that warranted dopaminergic therapy, the main study endpoint.

In prior studies involving healthy individuals, increasing urate levels have been associated with a reduced risk of developing Parkinson's disease. Whether such levels also influence the prognosis of established disease was not known......


Dr. Alberto Ascherio, from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, and colleagues analyzed data from 804 subjects with early Parkinson's disease who were enrolled in the PRECEPT study, a randomized drug trial conducted between April 2002 and August 2005. (It was stopped early for futility.)

While the main endpoint was clinical progression, radiographic assessment of striatal dopaminergic neurons was also performed in 399 of the subjects.......

Radiographic analysis suggested that striatal dopaminergic neuron loss decreased as serum urate levels rose. Once again, a significant association was noted only in men.
Despite these findings, the authors point out that the "measurement of urate on its own in patients with newly diagnosed Parkinson's disease as an indicator of an individual patient's future rate of progression is likely to be of modest clinical utility." However, the results suggest that urate or its determinants could serve as targets for novel disease-modifying therapies, they add.

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