from carolyn's original posting:
" 'People with Parkinson's disease have a lower occurrence of heart attack and stroke than people who do not have the disease,' said Dr. Xuemei Huang, medical director of the Movement Disorder Clinic at UNC Hospitals and an assistant professor of neurology in the UNC School of Medicine"


Stroke. 2006 May;37(5):1184-8. Epub 2006 Mar 30. Links
Comment in:
Stroke. 2006 Sep;37(9):2217.
Reduced risk factors for vascular disorders in Parkinson disease
patients: a case-control study.Scigliano G, Musicco M, Soliveri P,
Piccolo I, Ronchetti G, Girotti F.
Istituto Nazionale Neurologico C. Besta, Via Celoria 11, 20131 Milan,
Italy. giulioscigli...@tiscalinet.it


BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Sympathetic hyperactivity is a contributing
cause of vascular disorders because it increases blood pressure, blood
sugar, and blood lipids. Pervasive compromise of the central and
peripheral autonomic nervous systems is common in idiopathic Parkinson
disease (IPD) resulting in reduced sympathetic and parasympathetic
function. We hypothesized that IPD was associated with reduced
prevalence of cardiovascular disease risk factors as a result of
reduced sympathetic activity. METHODS: We performed a retrospective
case-control study on 178 newly diagnosed consecutive IPD patients, and
533 age- (+/-3 years) and sex-matched controls with other neurological
diseases seen over the same period at the same hospital. For each case
and control the following were noted on admission: smoking, diabetes,
hypertension, body mass index, serum glucose, plasma cholesterol,
triglycerides and total lipid levels, and blood pressure. RESULTS:
Diabetes, history of smoking, high blood pressure, high blood glucose,
high blood cholesterol, and triglycerides were significantly less
frequent in IPD than controls. CONCLUSIONS: IDP is a natural model of
impaired hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity and generalized
sympathetic denervation. We interpret the association of untreated IPD
with reduced vascular diseases risk factors as attributable to reduced
autonomic activity, suggesting that autonomic hyperactivity may be
involved in the pathogenesis of vascular disorders.


PMID: 16574924 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]